The Olympian Acceptance
by FrostyGhostKing
Summary: My take on Blood Of Olympus. Luke returns to visit Annabeth in her dreams. He has amends to make. Nico struggles with his feelings. Percy tries to understand the responsibilities and the affect of Tartarus. For those who can't wait for BoO Percy/Nico; Percy/Annabeth; I don't know how Rick's gonna do it, but, here's my version.
1. Chapter 1

NICO

Nico sat on the grass beside the other seven and Reyna while coach Hedge went to his room to "pack his stuff".

He looked around and realized he and Leo were the only people lost in their own thoughts, while the others discussed not-so-end-of-the-world stuff. He didn't know what was wrong with Leo but Nico couldn't bring himself to look at Percy and Annabeth. But for some reason he could feel piercing grey eyes at him from time to time, and the gaze didn't feel friendly.

Nico got up and walked into the woods, twisting his Stygian sword in his hand, distractedly.

Suddenly, his sharp ears picked up muffled footsteps behind him. He spun lithely and the tip of his sword was blocked by a pale white sword. Nico could tell it was made of a bone.

Stormy grey eyes stared at Nico's black ones.

"What are you doing here?", Nico asked roughly, pulling back his sword, though he didn't like it one bit.

"I was worried about you", Annabeth answered but her glare seemed more calculating than concerned.

"You needn't be concerned about me", said Nico turning to walk away.

"Something has changed, Nico", Annabeth murmured. "You had a crush on me didn't you? You were worried about me. That's why you asked Bob the titan to help us"

Nico gritted his teeth, trying to control his anger. "Tartarus changes people. And some people are too important to this war, to be changed. We need to win this war", he growled. Annabeth was making him uneasy. He could feel the coldness of each dying spirit in a 500 mile radius. His ADHD was acting up.

"Tartarus does change people," Annabeth said slowly, as if each word hurt. Then she quickly regained her composure, "And you seem changed too."

"I was always like this, okay? Just go now, I need some time alone before we shadow travel back to Camp Half Blood", Nico snapped irritatedly.

Annabeth took a step towards him, her eyes dark and stormy, her mouth pressed in a straight line.

It was hard for Nico to look at her mouth, because, well. Percy.

"It better not be what I'm thinking, Di Angelo", she warned and walked back to where the others were sitting.

Nico's knees buckled and he fell to the mossy floor. His palm touched the green ground and the entire flora around his hand died.

There was no hope for him. The son of the god of the underworld, where all beautiful things died, should be nowhere near the beautiful ocean. He should just stay away or he'd mess everything up. Annabeth was perfect for Percy.

But one line, that he'd heard before gave him hope and stopped his heart from shattering and breaking his very spirit.

'The sea doesn't like to be restrained, Nico. It has various forms, each very beautiful in different ways. Don't take the sea to be unchanging. There's always hope, even when all seems lost.'

These were the four lines that his sister had said to him when she found out Nico's feelings for Percy.

Anger filled Nico. His sister hadn't told him she was trying for rebirth. She had deserted him, left him alone in this world cruel to the children of Hades. A wave of emotions broke free inside Nico and he cried.

PERCY

"So Octavian is in charge?", Percy asked Reyna.

"Yes", Reyna replied, shifty.

"So, you left that cracked up augur in charge and he will probably, most definitely, destroy my camp?", Percy asked feeling helpless.

Sure he wanted future in New Rome for him and Annabeth but Camp Halfblood would always be home and he wouldn't let that mad stuffed toy murderer destroy his home.

"Well, I had no other choice!", Reyna exclaimed. "I must get back as soon as possible"

"Yeah, you must", Annabeth came out of the forest and sat beside Percy. "You must stop Octivian and reunite the Roman and Greek counterparts of the gods"

Percy looked at Annabeth. The fact that he had left a giant and a titan, and maybe the only two good ones, to die because Annabeth and he had to leave, tore his insides into pieces. He was sure the trip to Tartarus had broken something deep inside him. The last string had snapped. He wasn't what he was before. But looking at Annabeth he couldn't tell how she felt. Her eyes were dark and stormy like they usually got when she's angry or plotting the best way to take down their enemies. It seemed that Tartarus had changed her in ways he didn't know. Yet.

The others discussed light things, avoiding the grave topic of reaching Athens and stopping Gaia. Percy guessed they were trying to be a group of teenagers having a picnic and truthfully, Percy couldn't blame them.

Percy looked into the woods from where Nico and Annabeth had left but only the latter had returned.

He worried about Nico. About four years ago, Nico's sister had given her life trying to get a gift for Nico and also protecting Percy. He would never be able to forgive himself if something happened to Nico. He had disappointed Nico by letting his sister die; he couldn't disappoint Bianca too, even if Nico made things really hard by pushing Percy away. And truthfully, Nico was the only demigod Percy was scared of. Nico was very powerful and it was probable that he didn't know all his powers yet. So he had to be dealt with caution and understanding and love.

Love.

Percy didn't think Nico was used to being loved. Bianca loved him, but she left him to be a hunter and then died. Nico's mom died because his father's brother was a nutjob. Hades, Percy was sure, wasn't the affectionate come-here-let-me-hug-you-and-make-you-feel-better dad type.

A warm hand jerked Percy out of his thoughts.

"Do you think we should rest for a day before we leave?", Reyna asked, shaking Percy's arm.

"Uh", Percy suggested very intelligently.

"We must get the Athena Parthenos to camp Half Blood as soon as possible.", Annabeth interrupted. "It's our only hope of reconciling the Romans and the Greeks. And until we do, the god can't help us either"

Jason cleared his throat, and Piper sat up straight and Leo looked up from whatever he had been fidgeting with. Even Frank and Hazel looked at Jason expectantly.

"Nico got us all here today. Shadow travelling with all of us must have taken a lot of energy. I think we should let him rest for a while, even if he thinks he doesn't need rest", Jason stated.

Everyone looked like they were having a hard time letting this matter wait but Jason's second comment wiped all their uneasiness out.

"It's not like the gods have helped us anyway. We're doing their dirty work. Nico deserves some rest"

"I think Jason is right", Percy said finally, finding his voice and recollecting his thoughts, "Let's just go back to the ship for today. I've missed the ocean"

Annabeth reached out and took his hand and pulled him to his feet. "Let's go swim, Seaweed Brain"

ANNABETH

Annabeth held Percy's hand as they walked back to the ship. The others stayed back to stay out a little longer.

"What's up, Seaweed Brain?", she asked, concerned. Percy was still lost in his thoughts. The scary part was that she could still see the hint of the Percy she had seen in the underworld. And that worried her.

But they'd be alright, right? They were Percy and Annabeth, they had been through different kinds of crap and would probably go through more and still come out intact.

Tartarus changes people, the thought floated inside her head.

"Just thinking about cheese burgers", he replied, smiling faintly. The smile Annabeth had come to love so much. She stood on her toes and kissed him.

They took a dip in the ocean, and messed around playfully, a ghost of their previous selves, if only for a while. The ancient waters seemed dangerous but Percy kept anything unwanted at bay.

After a while, they went back to the ship and dried themselves off. Then they went back to Percy's cabin and curled up on the bed.

Annabeth rested her head on the crook of Percy's neck. He smelled of the salty sea wind and felt cool under her touch. He was quiet and she realized Percy had never been this quiet before.

"Sleep, Seaweed Brain, you deserve it", she whispered against his neck.

Percy turned and kissed her forehead and whispered against her hair, "You too, wise girl. I'll hold you till you need me too"

With that Annabeth closed her eyes to sleep in peace.

But obviously, Demigods don't sleep in peace. At least not Annabeth and her company.

She was back at camp Halfblood and it was the day Luke, Thalia and she had reached the camp with Grover.

"Go! I'll buy you guys time!", said Thalia, raising Aegis to face the hellhounds.

"Thalia!", Luke shouted, before a flash of lighting struck Thalia, travelled through her and hit the hellhounds. But Thalia wasn't Thalia anymore. Where she had been standing a minute ago, stood a tall pine tree.

Seven year old Annabeth tugged at Luke's arm as tears streamed down both their cheeks.

"Annabeth..."

A familiar voice whispered in her head.

She looked around and the scene had changed. It was camp Halfblood but it was full of happy campers going about their activities. Nobody seemed to notice Annabeth.

"Annabeth..."

She reached for her dagger but found the drakon bone sword instead. She pulled it out and scanned her surroundings.

"You look pretty", said the voice just as she turned and came to face with the owner.

Luke.

He looked just like he had before he went psycho. Handsome, even with the scar on his face. Eyes twinkling and a gorgeous smile.

Annabeth's face must've twisted in a mixture of emotions because Luke said quickly, "Hey, hey, I'm not hitting on you, I'm just saying. You've grown into a good person, Annabeth. Percy is lucky to have you"

Annabeth struggled with a smile. She had never dreamt of Luke before and obviously demigod dreams weren't just dreams. If Luke was here, that meant that his spirit was actually visiting Annabeth.

"What are you doing here, Luke?", she asked and wished her voice didn't quaver that much.

"I just have some things to do around here", he said distantly. He no longer had his sword, Backbiter with him anymore. He was fingering the beads on his necklace. "I need to set things right"

"It's all over, Luke!", Annabeth exclaimed, "there's nothing to set right."

"Oh, but there is.", Like replied, his blue eyes piercing Annabeth's thoughts together. "Wake up and there's a gift for you"

Luke clicked his fingers and Annabeth's eyes fluttered open.

Somebody was thumping on Percy's door and Percy was still out like a bulb.

"Hey, oiii, get up", Annabeth shook Percy and went over to open the door.

Leo stood at the door, his hair ruffled and bags under his eyes.

"Uh, guys", he started, "Just thought I should let you know that Lord Hermes is here"


	2. Chapter 2

NICO

He was perched on the yardarm, on the top of the foremast, alone with his thoughts when the winds carried Lord Hermes upon the Argo II.

For a god to be this close to the Ancient Lands, there had to be trouble. Especially when the Greek and Roman counterparts of the gods were fighting each other to regain control.

Hermes stood on the deck in a dark blue business suit. He was tossing his caduceus from one hand to another. The snakes Martha and George were complaining about how this ship didn't have rats and how the tossing about hurt.

Nico climbed down the mast to the god. Hermes smiled at him.

"Nico Di Angelo, son of Hades!", he said smiling but it looked strained, "I'm actually here to help you out"

Before Nico could question him about it, Leo and Piper came on to the deck.

"Holy Hephaestus! Is that a god on my deck?", Leo asked, his eyes wide open. Piper looked shocked, too stunned to move.

"Lord Hermes!", Piper squeaked.

"Uh, Leo", she said, nudging Leo, "We should go call the others.

Without another word, Leo turned, towing Piper away with him.

Nico could hear them explaining to Hazel and Frank.

"Hermes, not Herpes!", Nico could hear Leo cry out with exasperation, "Piper please tell them!"

"Mercury in Roman, I guess", Hazel interrupted thoughtfully.

Hermes smiled at Nico again. He making him uneasy but he dared not disrespect a god.

"Lord Hermes, what brings you here?", Nico asked, doing his level best to sound calm.

"Maybe we should wait for the others to come", Hermes replied casually. The ocean air ruffled his curly hair and Nico could see the corner over his eyes crinkled. Hermes looked strained.

Just then, Annabeth and Leo skidded to a halt in front of Hermes.

"Annabeth", Hermes nodded at her serenely.

"What-how ar-", Annabeth stuttered, "How can you be here?"

"My two forms have been reunited for a while", Hermes replied, "I'm here to take The Athena Parthenos, the satyr and the female roman praetor to Camp Halfblood."

Hermes looked at Nico, "You're free to come with us."

Nico bit his lip, thinking back to his meeting with Cupid.

Nico looked around and caught Jason's eye. Jason looked worried about Nico. But that was impossible because why would anybody worry about _Nico_?

Hazel walked over to Nico and hugged him. Nico felt a familiar but long forgotten rush. Was that how it felt like when Bianca hugged him? This was what a bit of love felt like.

Hazel stood on her toes and kissed his forehead.

She had seen his decision in his eyes. "Stay safe, Nico"

She stepped back and Frank put an arm around her.

"I'll come", Nico told Hermes.

Hermes clapped his hands and a huge white and good cloth appeared. It had a beautiful golden owl embroidered on it.

Just then Coach Hedge burst onto the deck.

He let out a battle cry, "Who're we killing today?!"

He stopped, when he saw Hermes. "Oh..."

Hermes waved his hand and the cloth flew over to Reyna whose hair hung out loosely from her braid, her dark eyes wide.

"Cover the statue, Daughter of Bellona", Hermes told her.

Nico had always got the impression that she was a calm and composed but strict and determined praetor, but right now she looked shocked.

She grabbed the cloth and hurried off to cover the statue.

"I'm ready to go!", Coach Hedge announced, waving his baseball bat.

Jason walked upto Nico and hugged him, even though Nico had specifically asked him never to touch him again. "You'll do the right thing", he said softly so no one except Nico could here. He was too shocked to respond so he stood limply while Jason hugged him.

Frank shook his hand and so did Leo.

It looked like Leo had thought of some comment but he thought better than to say it aloud.

Piper patted him on the back. "Good luck"

Nico smiled harshly. Good luck to a son of Hades. That was as funny as Zeus dancing around in his underwear.

Annabeth came over next, this time her eyes did show concern but Nico was sure she thought he'd somehow fuck up the Athena Parthenos.

"Take care, Nico", she said touching his arm. He had a hard time not jerking his arm away.

The others were saying goodbye to coach Hedge when Percy walked over.

His curly hair was ruffled and his sea green eyes looked strained and sad, totally unPercy like. He gave Nico a sad smile and Nico's heart did a somersault in his chest.

"Am I allowed to give you a hug?", he asked.

"I'd rather you don't", Nico replied through gritted teeth. Percy always had to make things so hard.

Percy looked hurt. He chewed on his lip and Nico tried not to notice.

"Okay then", Percy said shaking Nico's hand, "Be careful, please"

Nico walked over to Hermes, not looking at Percy again and just then the Athena Parthenos came flying back to the deck, the cloth covering it had apparently sprouted wings. Reyna jogged behind it, flushed.

After the girls had finished hugging Reyna and everybody had said goodbyes, Hermes clicked his fingers and the four of them and the Athena Parthenos vanished into thin air.

They stood in front of the Big House in Camp Halfblood, where Chiron was standing on the porch giving out orders to The Apollo and Ares cabin.

Before Chiron could possible see them, Nico whispered urgently to coach Hedge and Reyna, "Hey, I need to leave, now".

And before either of them could ask him anything, he had shadow travelled into the woods of camp Halfblood.

He appeared at the spot where two years ago Percy had found him, Juniper and Leneus.

Nico found a comfortable boulder and sat on it.

Before he could even get too comfortable, he heard footsteps. But the sound was muffled as if the foot was padded. The sound was so soft, most people would've missed it. Even demigods.

He turned around and saw a huge hellhound a few metres away from him. Nico stood still, waiting for the hellhound to make the first move.

The hellhound harmed happily and started licking Nico, making him fall flat on his back.

"Mrs. O'Leary?", Nico asked, laughing, after what seemed like a decade, as the hellhound drenched him with her saliva.

After Nico managed to stand up straight, Mrs. O'Leary gave him a solemn look. She shoved her head against Nico, urging him to sit on her.

Just then the sky rumbled and there was a flash of lightning. Reyna must've restored peace among the gods.

Mrs. O'Leary shoved her head at Nico again, this time more urgently.

"What's up, girl?", Nico asked helping himself onto her back.

As soon as he sat, Mrs. O'Leary shadow travelled away.

He found himself in front of his father's palace.

Fear clogged his throat. He didn't want to see his father. What if Hades had found out about his feelings?

"Uh, girl, I think you got us to the wrong place", Nico squeaked.

Just then the doors of the palace flew open and Hades stood in black jeans and a black t shirt that said, "Scary just got sexy". He looked younger than Nico had ever seen him before.

Nico gingerly got off the hellhound's back and walked upto his father and knelt.

"Come in, Nico", Hades' rich voice rumbled. "Seems like we have a lot of catching up to do"


	3. Chapter 3

_**Hey, uh, a few things before you read this.**_

_**Firstly, I had a hard time describing the Argo II. I've tried my best and described it the way I saw it. If it's a lot different from the way you imagined it, I'm sorry.**_

_**Secondly, any comments, corrections and suggestions or any other kinds of review are welcome.**_

_**Thirdly, all the Percico fans, hang in there.**_

PERCY:

He and Annabeth stood on the deck looking at the ocean, waves crashing on the Argo II.

Leo was fiddling with the Archimedes Sphere while Hazel and Piper were practicing sword fighting. Jason and Frank were in the mess hall.

Things were peaceful. Percy could almost imagine that this was a romantic cruise. Until Festus blew out smoke.

Percy had no idea what they were going to do when they reached Greece. There was no possible way that seven demigods could stop Gaia from rising. How could they defeat the earth itself?

They had barely escaped Tartarus, letting Bob and Damasen die for them.

Percy just couldn't let that fact go. All the havoc and pain and terror Gaia had caused made him mad beyond measure. He was in a rage. He wanted to tear Gaia to pieces. He hadn't been this mad since he had thought The Minotaur had killed his mother. He was confused about the way they were supposed to defeat Gaia when they didn't even know what she planned to do. He was worried about Annabeth.

She had been distant ever since she woke him up. Her face was pale and her hair wasn't as gorgeous as usual. But Percy couldn't help but notice how exceptionally beautiful she still looked. How brave and independent and smart she was, always awed him. It filled his heart with happiness and love and hope.

Percy should've learnt that a demigod shouldn't have too many good thoughts together. It kinda jinxed the whole atmosphere.

Because right then, Hazel asked, "Uh, guys, not to worry you or anything but what in the name of Hades is that?"

Percy and Annabeth turned to look at Hazel and traced her finger which was pointing towards a dark shadow in the sky.

"Maybe I should get Jason, he'd know", Piper suggested and rushed inside to get Frank and Jason.

As the shadow got closer, Percy noticed Annabeth's eye brows draw in together.

"It's gleaming", Annabeth pointed out.

Just then Piper rushed on to the deck with Jason, Frank and Leo.

"Holy Heph- are those birds?", he asked squinting at the gleaming, now approaching towards them, mass.

"I have a bad feeling about this", Jason muttered, "Take cover!"

Every one rushed inside the control room and looked out the glass panel to see that they had gotten inside just in time.

There were bronze arrow heads stuck to the wooden deck of the Argo II.

"Arrow Heads?", Frank asked.

"No!", Annabeth exclaimed. "Look closely"

And Percy did. At first glance those looked like arrow heads, but after a closer look those looked like bronze feathers.

"Feather shooting bronze birds?", Leo asked scratching his head, "They're bloody destroying my ship!"

"Metallic birds which shoot feathers", Percy observed looking at the flock that was now getting closer. "With golden beaks. Where have I read about them?"

"Stymphalian Birds", Annabeth declared, "Flesh eating metallic feather shooting birds"

"I've heard about them", Percy said recalling one of his adventures with Clarisse and a chariot race that seemed a lifetime ago, "Aren't they, uh, supposed to be pets of Ares?"

The last two times he had encountered them, they either shot feathers or tried to eat them alive. This time, apparently because they were so close to the Ancient Lands, they would do both.

Everybody looked at Frank.

"Uh, don't look at me", Frank said shrugging, "I've seen my father just a couple of times. We didn't have time to talk about his flesh eating pets"

"Uh, they're getting really close", Hazel warned.

Everybody now looked at Annabeth. The smartest and the most logical of them all.

"Heracles defeated them", she said after a long time, "Well, most of them. The others flew away, I think"

"Well, of course he did. We're unlikely to come across anything he didn't defeat", Percy replied rolling his eyes. This jerk Heracles was everywhere.

"Well lucky then that we have our own Heracles, huh?", said Leo, thumping Jason on his back. Jason winced.

"How were they defeated?", he asked Annabeth, "Some son if Jupiter thing?"

"Not really", Annabeth replied, her grey eyes stormy again, her eye brows knitted together. Percy thought she looked very attractive while planning to kill flesh eating birds.

The birds had now settled the deck, all of them staring at the glass panel of the control room with their large black beady eyes. There were around a hundred of them. The birds were very ugly and huge with metallic feathers all over their body with large golden beaks. They could easily be assumed as automatons.

"Heracles scared them with a rattle given to him by Athena", Annabeth said, pacing urgently now, "A rattle designed by Hephaestus especially for this occasion"

"And they just flew away into the sunset?", Leo asked his hands already reaching into his belt, "That easy?"

"No, he shot as much of them as he could to scare them and they never returned to that land", Annabeth explained.

"Well, we have a child of Hephaestus who'll build us the special rattle", Piper noted.

"Great, now I'm the toymaker", Leo said hanging his head low and fidgeting with stuff from his belt.

"And we have an archer too", Hazel said putting an arm around Frank.

"Uh, I'm not sure I'll be able to shoot too many of them", Frank replied awkwardly.

"You're all we've got, buddy", Percy replied patting Frank on the back. The guy was huge now, with a well chiselled body.

"So I'm just gonna sit here and hope these birds don't break the glass", Percy added. It felt good to not fight for a while.

The birds seemed to be pecking the deck and making holes in the floorboard. Some seemed to be pooping around here and there. Others were staring at the control room glass intently as if deciding how to best break it.

"Oh, and their poop is really toxic", Annabeth remembered.

"We won't eat it", Percy answered seriously.

"Even the smell, you dummy", Annabeth replied playfully smacking his head.

"Well", Piper started, "doesn't it seem too easy? Everything else we've faced before has been _way_ more difficult"

"Well, a guy could get used to this easy and luxurious life style", Leo answered and in his hand was a rattle.

It was silver from the outside, with little bronze strips that interlocked with each other.

"Papa is done", Leo announced, "Let's see what you got, brother", he handed the rattle to Jason.

Jason shook the rattle and it made the irritating sound children's rattle made.

"You sure this going to work, Wise Girl", Percy asked Annabeth, brushing a strand of hair from her eyes.

"It should. If this doesn't, I don't know what would.", Annabeth replied.

Jason walked to the door, with his gladius in one hand and the rattle in the other and unlocked it. "Okay, so, see you later, I guess"

He walked out and shook the rattle.

And Percy decided it was the worst thing he could've done.

The birds, instead of flying away, flew directly at Jason, who slew the nearest ones.

This stopped the other birds, but only for a while. They shot their metallic arrows and Jason tried to deflect them but a lot of them buried themselves into his arm and legs.

"Jason!", Piper shouted and opened the door.

"Go away, you ugly chickens", she screamed at the birds. A few of them looked dazed and fell into the water. But then they flew back up onto the deck and shot their feathers at Piper.

Frank shot at the birds and a few of them turned to dust but the birds were quick.

Jason rolled to where Piper was standing, grabbed her by the waist and flew back into the control room. The gust of wind Jason had let out disbalanced a lot of the birds who flew into the wrong direction and so did the feathers.

Frank shut the door and moved Piper carefully from on top Jason.

Annabeth quickly got out a piece of ambrosia and stuffed it into Jason's mouth, while Frank plucked the feathers from his body.

Jason moaned.

"It should've worked!", Leo exclaimed, kneeling beside Jason, who moaned again.

Percy turned to look at the dock where it seemed that more had gathered. He raised his hand and called the sea to him. He felt a slight tug at his navel as a huge wave rose and darkened the deck.

"Uh, guys?", Percy called, "You might want to hold on to something"

And before Leo could protest about destroying his ship, Percy brought the tide down on the deck. The ship lurched forward and people screamed but Percy couldn't tell who it was.

As the tide went back to the ocean, Percy realized it had been futile. Except that the tide had cleaned all the toxic poop.

The birds still stood on the deck firmly, tilting their heads and staring at Percy as if devising a special plan just to kill Percy.

"I think you just got them angrier", Hazel noted.

But it should've worked! How could those thick headed birds still be firmly planted on the deck?

"But why didn't the rattle work?", Leo asked tugging at his hair in exasperation.

"Because they're thick headed, stupid, metallic birds", Percy replied, irritated.

At that, Piper's eyes lit up. "Give me the damn rattle", she told Jason, who weakly handed over the rattled while Annabeth checked his wounds.

Piper picked up the rattle and touched it to her lips. "May this be the most beautiful sound you've heard", she whispered lightly, and handed the rattle to Percy.

Percy shook the rattle and the rattle chimed. The rattle didn't rattle. It chimed the most beautiful melody. The sound was enchanting, like the sound could move in one direction and everyone would just follow it without reason. It reminded Percy of a childhood story about the piper who played his pipes and lead the mice away from a city they had been infesting.

And then Annabeth started ordering everyone around.

"Frank, get ready with your bow. You'll have to be very quick and shoot as many of those birds as you can"

"Piper and Hazel, look after Jason's wounds and check for poisoning"

"Percy, take the rattle and you'll be going out and shaking it at the birds and Frank will be shooting them down"

"Leo, stay ready. Shoot at them if you can, and we'll take off into the air"

Percy and Frank unlocked the door. "On the count of three", Percy told Frank who just grunted in answer.

"One. Two. Three!", Percy announced and threw the door open.

The birds instantly flew towards them to attack, but before they or any of their feathers could reach them, Percy shook the rattle.

The beautiful sound the rattle made turned the metal feathers into real, soft feathers and was intolerable for the birds. They screeched a strange metallic clang and flew away, somewhere south, Percy could tell.

But only some got away. Leo raised the ship into the air and Frank shot most of them, which turned into dust.

The others came out on the deck and Annabeth hugged Percy. Piper was supporting Jason and Hazel kissed Frank.

Leo just looked out into the ocean below and twisted a crystal in his hand, his eyes very sad.

"You guys should go rest, I'd keep a lookout for more flesh eating ugly chicken and other usual stuff", he suggested.

"I'll stay with you", Hazel replied, walking upto Leo and putting an arm around him.

"Me too", Piper added, walking to Leo and kissing his cheek.

Percy looked at Annabeth who still looked pale and had bags under eyes. He wondered if she had slept at all, last night.

He grabbed some sandwiches from the kitchen and led Annabeth to her cabin.

Her cabin had notes and diagrams and other stuff Percy didn't understand stuck on the walls. He knew she missed Dedalus's laptop a lot. It was her treasure and probably had a lot of priceless ideas and inventions. He knew it hurt her to lose it. He sat in the bed, leaning on the wall and Annabeth slept with her head on his lap.

ANNABETH:

She closed her eyes but she could feel Percy still tense. She didn't know what they were doing or what they were supposed to do anymore. Tartarus had hurt them and it seemed like life had little meaning anymore.

Slowly, she fell unconscious.

She dreamt of a forest. She walked deeper into it and found it tents set up, guarded by wolves and owls. She could hear voices and a particular voice she heard from one of the tents caught her attention and drew her towards the tent.

She slipped into the tent quietly, which was enormous from the inside.

Two girls sat inside, both of nearly the same age. Around sixteen. One of them just one day less than sixteen.

"Thalia", she whispered but the girls didn't hear her.

She went closer to get a better look.

Thalia's hair was still short and black and spiky. There was an elegant silver circlet on her head. She looked very sad.

"Don't torture yourself, Thalia", the other girl told Thalia, her hand on her arm. "There's no point anymore"

"I don't know what's happening, Phoebe", Thalia said, her voice unsteady. Annabeth had never heard Thalia like this. She always saw her as a brave and ferocious person.

"I haven't felt like this since before Lady Artemis asked me to join the hunters", Thalia replied biting her lip.

Somebody touched Annabeth's shoulder and she screamed, but nobody heard her.

She turned to find Luke.

"Hey", he said sadly. "This was what I was talking about".


	4. Chapter 4

_**okay, so, like somebody cared to point out, Annabeth and Percy had indeed come across Stymphalian birds before. Once in the Chariot Race in the beginning of The Sea Of Monsters. Also, in Demigod Files when Percy helps Clarisse retrieve her father's chariot. But only in the first case did Rick Riordan care to mention that the birds were Stymphalian. in the other, he just mentioned that they were pet's of Ares. So, I've edited the previous chapter the best I could. Thank you.**_

**NICO:**

Nico followed Hades into the palace where skeletal servants were running around here and there getting chores done.

He noticed the palace was a little different. Maybe Pluto had redesigned it?

"Uh, father", Nico began but Hades just waved his hand at him. They went deeper into the palace.

"Is Lady Persephone not here?", Nico asked, looking around for his father's wife.

"No", Hades replied dismissively, "She's on earth with her mother"

They walked into a huge room, as big as two football fields with a very high ceiling.

It was decorated well, with jewels and precious metals and beautifully detailed paintings of misery and pain, wars and famines, sorrow and hopelessness.

Oh, and also with bones.

There were huge black leather sofas and arm chairs. Fifty people Nico's size could fit into one of the sofas.

"So, long time, no see, son?", Hades asked trying for a smile.

"...You got me here because of this?", Nico growled.

Hades sighed. "I talked to your mother, Nico"

He got up and started pacing the room.

Nico's eyes widened and his lower lip quivered.

Hades sighed again. "The dead hear things Nico"

The dead technical don't hear things but Nico had been in the demigod business long enough to know everything was possible.

The problem wasn't that the dead heard things. The problem was what the dead heard.

Nico's knees went slack. What had his mother heard which was so urgent that she had to talk to Hades himself?

"Maria was a great woman, Nico", Hades started, his deep black eyes faraway, "She was the greatest mortal woman I had come across.

"I offered to build her a palace, down here in the Underworld, when the gods started hunting down my children after the war, but she refused. She said she wouldn't raise her children in the world of the dead. She was very brave and Zeus didn't scare her and she refused to live in hiding or to let me hide you and Bianca. She said she loved me and she would accept whatever protection I could provide on earth."

The hair on the back of Nico's arms and legs stood up. A cold feeling tingled his spine. This was unusual for a son of Hades.

Hades had his back turned towards Nico. He couldn't see his face but his voice sounded different, as if humbled.

"I couldn't", he said softly, "I couldn't save her. Zeus blasted the hotel she was in while I stood in the lawn with you and Bianca."

Nico's eyes stung. He was claustrophobic. He longed for an open meadow. Never before had he longer for one, except when he was in Tartarus.

"Nico", Hades said softly and turned to face him, his eyes serene, "Your mother was a smart woman. She had her heart in the right place"

Her heart in the right place.

The words rang through his mind. His whole body shook with grief. Images and memories flashed in his mind.

Him and Bianca playing in a garden while Hades and his mother sat on garden chairs: Hades and his mother taking him and Bianca out on a gondola ride, somewhere in Italy; Nico's sixth birthday, when Hades and Maria gave him Mythomagic figurines, and then Nico hugging them both with a goofy grin on his face; Maria dragging a very reluctant Nico with hair till his shoulders to a chair to give him a haircut; Bianca babysitting a short-haired Nico, chasing him around a cosy house to get him into pyjamas; Maria kissing his forehead and tucking him into bed; Nico crying after scraping his knee while playing and Bianca trying to calm him while Maria picked him up and patted his back.

Nico jerked out of the flashbacks and cried out, a low painful howl that seemed to shake the whole palace. Tears streamed down his face and he grabbed his hair and buried his hair in his knees, rocking back and forth in a depressing and monotonous beat.

"Death and love aren't so different, Nico", Hades murmured but those words were like a knife slashing across his chest. He had heard that from Cupid and now he was hearing them from his own father.

Waves of darkness rolled off him and whatever came in the way was consumed by the darkness and disintegrated.

"STOP", Hades commanded and the darkness subsided, but Nico still remained paralyzed. He had disintegrated a lot of furniture around him but the sofa he sat on was intact.

"Nico, please", said Hades. At better times he would've made of Hades for saying please to a mere mortal. But he had come to realize Hades was a father most demigods had wished for.

He had been present for as much of Nico's life, before his mother's death, as possible. He'd loved her mother very much too, Unlike Hazel's mother who hadn't been loved by Pluto or Jason's mother who wasn't really loved by Zeus.

"I've seen your future, Nico and I'll tell you it gets better. Hang in there", Hades said softly, "I've lost your mother, your sister and I don't need you to die too.

"Have you ever heard about the great things my children did? Never. That was because the Olympians hated me and my children. But you've shown them what children of mine can be and you've changed the way they think about us! That's a great accomplishment. You've done a lot for Olympus single handedly"

Everything Hades had said was true and satisfied Nico's thirst for knowledge and it did give him some kind of peace. Hades being so frank (probably because Persephone wasn't present) had brought Nico closer to the truth about himself.

"What did mother say?", Nico asked his voice still unsteady.

"I'm sorry that she's the only ghost you're not allowed to see", Hades began.

"What did mother say", Nico asked again cutting his sentence off.

"Your mother heard about your feelings towards certain people", Hades replied calmly.

The blood drained out of Nico's face and his heartbeat increased. He wanted to open up the ground and slip into wherever it took him. He wanted to jump off a cliff. Or maybe into the river Lethe and lose all his memories. Maybe he would lose his feelings too.

"Did she ask you to reserve a special place in some exclusive torture chamber for me?", Nico asked, his voice breaking up. His mother came from a time where being homosexual was a sin worse than murder.

"What you must understand, Nico, is that your mother wasn't a normal woman.", Hades replied quickly, obviously concerned with Nico's tone, "When she came to the underworld, her memories weren't stripped from her. She remembered everything. She fell in love with me. She didn't lead a normal mortal life. She only wishes the best for you"

"That's what she had to tell you so urgently?", Nico said, now angrily. He couldn't figure out what he felt or why he felt. Once more his feelings were twisted into knots.

"She wants you to be careful. She said she didn't care who you loved as long as you made the right decisions", Hades sighed, "She wanted to make sure you were okay and for me to tell you that it was okay"

Nico saw an image of his mother, wearing an old fashioned black velvet dress with a string of petals around her neck. She had her hair tied back and a matching hat. She smiled warmly at Nico and touched her fingers to her lips.

Tears streamed down Nico's face. Time went by. It was hard to decide how much time had passed. Time was different in the underworld.

Hades and Nico sat there for a very long time, silent. The screams of souls from the Fields Of Punishment could be heard.

"Sooo", Hades began, "Percy Jackson, eh?"

Nico groaned, "Father, we're not doing this"

"Well, I guess he isn't that bad", Hades went on, "I guess he is appealing, considering he's the greatest living hero and quite a good warrior. He does have an attitude problem, though."

"Father", Nico began but Hades went on.

"Homosexuality isn't really a new thing, you know. Zeus once seduced one of Artemis' hunters by turning into Artemis. I'm sure many of Artemis' hunters are homosexual. Also, Apollo had this secret lover who, Zeus was sure, was a man. Once I-"

"Father", Nico growled through gritted teeth and Hades raised his hands in defeat.

"Fine, but I just want you to not do anything stupid", Hades replied, "You've made me proud and I'd like to keep it that way"

Just then a rumble shook Hades' palace and a woman walked into the room.

She was tall, and wore a dark blue shirt with black pants. Her clothes fitted her well, and Nico could tell she was muscular, like a warrior. Her dark hair was wavy and tidy and hung loosely about her shoulders. She wore spectacles with not-so-thin frames which gave her a slightly casual look.

"Hades!", the woman shouted, putting her hands on her hips, her cold grey eyes scanning the room and lingering on Nico for about five seconds.

And those five seconds made Nico wish he was invisible.

She didn't look like the way she had the last time Nico bad seen her in Olympus. She looked like the CEO of some hip billion dollar company. She made Nico recede into the giant sofa.

"Athena", Hades greeted sourly, "I see you've made yourself comfortably welcome in my palace."

"As welcome as one can be here", she replied dismissively. "It's good that the kid is here too, he might as well hear it out"

She waved her hand and a beautiful silver chair appeared and she sat down.

Hades looked as confused as a god could. He had been dressed casually, probably to make Nico feel comfortable but Athena was treating him like an intern at her firm. He ruffled his hair and looked at Nico.

"I don't know what you're talking about", he said honestly.

"Oh, of course you do", Athena replied casually, "You've seen your child's future just like I have"

"And my future, with all due respect, is none of your business, Lady Athena", said Nico finding his voice at last.

"Oh, it's all my business. Ever since I saw that your fate crossed my daughter's and _that_ boy's, I had to come here", she explained. "I _definitely_ wasn't going to talk to old fishface"

Nico's heart hammered against his ribs. Did his face really cross Annabeth and Percy's? Was there something big hurtling towards him that may or may not end up well? Athena was the smartest Olympian, and if she had descended into the underworld to talk about this, Nico was definitely scared.

"So", she said leaning towards Nico, a cold smile on her face, "You're going to help me or what, boy?"

Her tone didn't suggest he had a choice.

_**Okay, so the next chapters might take some time. I've to read the Heroes Of Olympus again, get my facts straight. Get my thoughts together and stuff.**_

_**Aaaand, suggestions are welcome.**_


	5. Chapter 5

**_Okay, this chapter is kind of a filler. I promise there'll be more action in the next Percy or Annabeth POV. And the next chapter will be uploaded sooner._**

**_ANNABETH_**:

"What is the meaning of this, Luke?", Annabeth cried.

Suddenly they weren't in Thalia's tent anymore. They were in the alley where Luke and Thalia had first met Annabeth.

"Walk with me", Luke gestured ahead and since Annabeth had no choice, she started walking.

"You will have to bear with me", Luke started, "This is going to be long and hard to grasp"

"We're not going anywhere till this is finished so you might as well start", Annabeth replied trying not to sound too cold. "But first, tell me what that was about?"

"With Thalia?", Luke asked, his eyes downcast and Annabeth nodded.

"We don't have enough time for that, right now", he answered.

"Is she going to be okay?", She asked worriedly.

"I truthfully don't know", Luke sighed.

Luke reached out and touched Annabeth's cheek but before she could protest she was transported to the Castellan living room.

May was pouring baby food into a bowl decorated with cartoons while a year old Luke sat on a high chair, banging his hands on the table in front of him and giggling.

Hermes sat beside Luke and played with him with little clay models of monsters which Luke kept smashing and laughing.

"That was the last time I saw my father, before seeing him again when I came back here with you and Thalia", Luke said sadly.

"He was the messenger of gods and he was very busy. He couldn't make time for us."

"Luke", Annabeth whispered, "Don't do this to yourself"

The scene changed. A four year old Luke hid under the table while May Castellan's eyes turned green and she shouted, "He can't do this! He deserves better!"

"I'm not doing this for myself, Annabeth", Luke sighed. "Atleast not all of it."

Annabeth ignored the ramblings of the old woman and opened the door, leading Luke away from the bad memory.

They walked out into the surrounding woods and sat down on the greener part of the forest floor.

"I sent Hermes", Luke confessed, "I talked to him and got his two forms to reconcile for long enough to get the Athena Parthenos back to camp Halfblood."

"Still working to reach the Isle of the Blest?", Annabeth asked with a broken smile.

Luke smiled teasingly, "No, just trying to save you. Like the old times"

The old times.

Annabeth shifted uncomfortably.

Just then everything started to shake. The ground shook and the sky rumbled.

"Listen, Annabeth", Luke said urgently, "I have to explain everything to you so it might take time but-"

"I'm a daughter of Athena", Annabeth replied, getting up, "Do not underestimate me"

"I'm not", Luke said honestly, "They're waking you up, I can't keep you here any longer. I'll still be here when you come back"

Luke smiled one last time and kissed her forehead. Annabeth had this sudden urge to cry but she gritted her teeth and kept her face as blank as she could.

Then she woke up to Piper shaking her.

When she noticed Annabeth opening her eyes, Piper stepped back with a guilty expression.

"I'm sorry for waking you up", she apologized, "But I haven't had anybody super smart to talk about some of the prophecy lines I've been thinking about"

Annabeth was a little irritated that Piper had woken her up and taken Luke away for this but she gave her a smile anyway. She had missed Piper and Hazel. She even missed Rachel.

As if on cue, there was a knock on the door and Hazel peeked inside. "Girls time out?", she asked.

Normally, Annabeth didn't have "Girls Time out" and she doubted Piper and Hazel did either. But they were a different group of people and they probably needed this.

She slipped onto the floor and patted the area next to her. Piper sat down and Hazel came in.

They sat in a triangle discussing their past. Anything to forget about what was to come. For Hazel it was harder, but she needed to face things. Or so Annabeth thought.

Piper talked about her father and the problems he faced before he became famous, how he was detached and distant before Piper, long with Jason and Leo, saved him. How it did hurt her that he didn't remember what had happened.

Hazel talked about how her mother hadn't wanted her and how racism had treated her in her previous life, how she was glad for a second chance and that she owed it to Nico. And she was worried about him.

"I guess you're not the only one who owes a lot to Nico", Annabeth said and talked about her father, her stepmother and had stepbrothers. She didn't mention the dreams, but surprisingly, she found herself talking about Luke and Thalia and the times they had while on the run. Maybe it had something to do with her dreams but she felt like she had to talk to somebody about all this.

"I've been seeing things", Piper said carefully and Annabeth's mind buzzed. She'd been seeing things too. Or maybe Piper was seeing things in a different ways that she was.

Before her mind could come up with a billion more questions and situations, she asked, "Go on, Piper, you need this"

One of the parts of her brain told her maybe she should tell somebody the things she'd been seeing but I other part shut the voice up.

"Katoptris has been showing me images of a giant sitting on a dark blue throne", she started, "I think it's Porphyrion."

It seemed like the cabin went cold as soon as his name was spoken.

"And that's not all", Piper continued, "I've seen the image of a reddish brown giant, about 50 feet, who seems to be intent on destroying everything in his way"

"Another giant?", Hazel asked helplessly.

"There are too many of them", Annabeth replied, biting her lip.

Just then, the Argo II jerked.

Then suddenly, it was falling.

The three off the them rushed out to the deck to see Jason and Frank holding on to the railing at the edge if the deck, Jason trying to hold them down by controlling the air pressure.

Percy was trying to cushion their fall if they landed on the ocean with a painful expression on his face which made Annabeth feel like somebody had kicked her in the stomach. The Argo was hurtling towards a nearby island but Leo appeared to be pulling lever and jutting out panels and pressing buttons. "TRYING TO GET IT TO FALL INTO THE OCEAN OR NOT FALL AT ALL", he screamed.

The Argo hit the water with a soft bounce. Jason fainted from creating the pressure around the ship and directing its fall and Percy collapsed, barely conscious from saving the ship from crashing on impact.

Leo burst onto the deck. "This is the worst couple of worst days ever. And trust me when I say this cause I've had a lot of worst days"

He sank to his knees. "What happened to my baby?", he asked spreading his hand on the floor, feeling the machinery underneath.

Then his expression changed. "We'll be here for a while, I think"

PERCY:

His consciousness seemed to be slowly slipping away from him. Getting the water to support this extremely heavy ship took too much out of him. But he was afraid if he lost consciousness, he would never wake up again. That probably wouldn't be such a nice end for the great Percy Jackson. Zeus would probably fall off the top of Olympus laughing if he wasn't the one in trouble along with the other gods.

He felt warm hand on his face and somebody stuffing ambrosia into his mouth. It tasted like the cookies his mom made.

His mom.

Thinking if her made Percy want to fight this, get up on his feet, destroy Gaia and go back home to her. He hadn't talked to her in nearly two years. It didn't matter that a half of that time he was asleep and the other half time he didn't have his memory and the other half time he was in Tartarus. There probably couldn't be so many halves but he was a demigod and math didn't really matter.

He struggled to open his eyes. The ambrosia did heal him but it was making him drowsy. He couldn't make out what the others were saying. It seemed like they were talking through layers of bubble wrap.

Fighting the urge to close his eyes, he supported himself with the help of the railing and stood up.

Annabeth held on to him as he swayed, balancing himself.

"I'm fine", he croaked.

Piper was kneeling beside Jason who was beginning to regain consciousness.

"We'll have to get off on land and check the engine out", Leo said in a depressed tone.

He looked horrible. His hair was messy and he looked like he was about to cry. "Festus isn't responding"

All of them turned to look at the island which wasn't that far but reaching it without any help from the ship would be hard.

"We could manually move the oars. Maybe we could keep it up long enough to reach the island", Leo suggested and Percy could almost see the gears in his head turning at the speed of light.

"Or I could get the waves to support us and push us towards the island", Percy replied.

"No, I don't think you should be exerting yourself anymore", Annabeth interrupted sternly. She looked and sounded so much like her mother, Percy fought the urge to jump into the ocean.

"I could jump into the ocean and turn into a whale and push the ship", Frank suggested. He looked determined to do something to help.

"Are you sure you could do that?", Hazel asked slipping her arm into Frank's.

"I'm sure", Frank said positively.

He jumped into the water with a clumsy dive. Percy was happy to see that the kid he had met the first time he came to the Roman camp was still somewhere there behind the hunky body.

They felt the Argo move towards the island, but only a bit.

"I should go help him", Percy announced and before Annabeth could turn into her mom, Percy dived into the ocean gracefully.

He had never practiced diving but it was as if his body naturally readied itself to greet the ocean in the most lithe and graceful way. It had something to with being the son of Poseidon.

This reminded him of a question Nico had asked him years ago, while at the hunters' camp. If he could surf really well since he was the son of the sea god. At that time, the question had irritated him because he had lost Annabeth because if his stupidity. But now it just made him smile. What made him sad was the the loss of Nico's innocence.

He hadn't realized he was already in the water and various fish were swimming towards him. "Master! Master! Master!", they all shouted to get his attention. It was like a million voices were speaking inside his head, which probably was the case.

He greeted them and quickly swam towards the giant whale that was pushing the Argo. As he reached the Frank, he heard his voice inside his head, above the chirping of all the other fish, "This ship is very heavy!"

Upon seeing Percy frowning over the ship, the little fishes started to push the ship but the Argo still moved very slowly.

Percy realized the water had refreshed him and had given him a lot of strength. He tried to push the ship himself, but it didn't budge. Okay, so maybe he wasn't _that_ strong.

"I wish I could turn into a blue whale", Frank muttered inside Percy's head.

Percy whistled and huge hippocampi, the size of Rainbow arrived, looking excited to help.

"Would you guys be kind enough to help us push the ship towards the island?", Percy asked, hoping the hippocampi here were as kind as the ones back at home.

They wagged their serpentile tales and helped Frank push the Argo.

The ship glided through the water smoothly and in a matter of minutes, it had reached the island.

The hippocampi whinnied an Percy turned to pat them.

"Lord, please be careful", one of them warned, "There's something off about this island. Something strong and evil resides here"

Percy's stomach dropped. It wasn't a coincidence their ship had stopped working just near this island, because there were no coincidence in demigod-land.

"There are a lot of us and we're pretty strong ourselves", Percy replied confidently and smiled and the hippocampi and the fishes swam away.

He and Frank swam towards the surface as Frank slowly turned human again.

They walked on to the shore, to see Jason, Piper, Hazel and Annabeth standing on the sand while Leo was fidgeting with his Wii controller.

"Everything is dead!", he cried, "Nothing is responding. Nothing is wrong. It's just dead"

"Where are we?", Piper asked, looking around.

The shore where they stood, was empty but at a distance there were houses and shops with thatched roofs, bustling with people. A few children were playing around in the sand, far towards their left.

A few fishermen were rigging a small boat and nets towards the ocean. Percy hoped they didn't catch any of the fish who had helped Percy and then felt bad for wishing the other fishes death.

"Uh, guys", Hazel said in a shaky voice and pointed towards a board.

The colour drained out of Percy's face.

'Welcome to Gaios' it read.


	6. Chapter 6

_**I'm trying to get Nico to be a little better. And Percy a bit of a mess. And Annabeth is just confused about Luke and everything.**_

NICO:

"I need you to make sure Percy Jackson doesn't cause trouble for me or my daughter", Athena stated. "I don't know what you're supposed to do or how you're supposed to do it but Annabeth's fate crosses yours and Percy's so you must be the one who can save her and the rest of the world from falling into destruction because of Perseus Jackson. My daughter seems to be in a trance"

"What makes you think she needs saving?", Nico asked trying not to sound disrespectful.

"Oh, don't you know?", Athena asked, throwing her hand in the air, exasperated, "He's no good. He meddles too much. And his skull is nearly empty"

Nico's body temperature went high. Fine, maybe Percy was a little thick headed but he wasn't dumb. Somebody dumb couldn't have stopped Kronos, survived in the roman camp and survived Tartarus. He very vividly remembered how serene and older Percy had looked after coming back from Tartarus. He looked more attractive but Nico would never admit it out loud.

"What exactly are you asking me to do, Lady Athena?", Nico asked, curious if Athena had something already planned.

"I just don't want him to meddle in my business. And not mess my daughter up. And not mess the lives of everyone at stake here", she snapped.

Nico wanted to snap back about how Percy had saved Olympus once and was on his way to saving it again but he kept shut and made concerned faces.

" I will make sure he doesn't meddle anymore than he has to", Nico replied and bowed to her, hoping that would be the end of their conversation and she wouldn't ask him to do something too extreme.

Before Athena could reply, Nico got up and nodded to Hades, "Father", and walked out of the room.

"Nico", Hades called and Nico turned to face his father.

"Take care", Hades said softly. Then his demeanour changed back to the cold Lord of the dead.

Smiling slightly, Nico walked out. When he exited his stepmother's garden, he saw Mrs. O'Leary waiting for him. She barked happily and gave him a saliva bath.

Cerberus looked at Nico sadly and Nico patted one of his fingers on his gigantic paw and scratched it. The gesture seemed to tickle him. He growled happily and was about to lick Nico with his tongue which was big enough to be a highway, but Nico stepped back as fast as he could. "Stay", he ordered and walked away with Mrs. O'Leary.

He dropped off Mrs. O'Leary with a couple of other hellhounds which seemed to be sleeping outside the fields of punishments, since she seemed overly excited about sniffing the sleeping dogs.

He shadow travelled back straight back to his cabin, to avoid seeing anyone in camp.

He was pleased with the way his cabin had been made. Solid obsidian walls with torchs that burned with a green flame. It looked badass.

The cabin was huge from the inside but only had one bed, in one of the curved areas that gave Nico privacy but it's not like he ever needed it. Firstly, because he didn't have any cabin mates and secondly he hardly ever stayed here. Also, if he ever chose to, he shadow travelled straight in here so he didn't meet anybody else.

He lay down on the black silk sheets on the bed which seemed a bit too comfortable.

The ceiling of the cabin was painted to show Charon ferrying the mortal souls into the Underworld. But the painting was a crude one. Charon was represented like a silver '8' and the mortal souls were represented by little golden dots. The river Styx look fluid over the black ceiling paint. All the wishes and dreams that floated in the river Styx were shown as tiny golden stars. The ferry and the background was roughly sketched in bronze. The most interesting part of the ceiling was that it was like a live representation. The souls moved, the river flowed and Charon moved. It was nice to see that the dead were finally going back to the Underworld.

He got off the bed and opened the door and peeked out.

It was starry night and it must have been pretty late because nobody was out and all the lights seemed to be out too.

He slowly left the cabin and decided to walk around the Poseidon cabin. It always had a sea breeze blowing about it. The salty air reminded Nico of Percy. And though that hurt him, he was keen for the sea breeze.

Midway along the cabins, Nico froze. There seemed to be somebody sitting near the huge stone lined fire pit, in the middle of the huge field.

At first he thought it was Hestia, the goddess of the hearth. But the girl looked older and had a dark comforter around her shoulders.

He stood rooted to the spot wondering if he should just turn away but before he could decide, the girl turned and saw him.

Her face was against the light and Nico couldn't see her enough to recognise her. She motioned for Nico to come over to her. Since he had little room for options, he approached, keeping his hand on his sword that hung from his waist.

As he got closer, his eyes adjusted to the unnatural lighting and he recognised her.

It was Reyna.

She was sitting beside the hearth, still looking strong and regal in Camp Halfblood pyjamas. But her eyes were sad.

Nico felt awkward. He didn't know what to do or what to say. He sat down beside her.

"You didn't have to run away so quick, you know?", Reyna told him.

"My dad wanted to see me", Nico replied casually. Something flickered in Reyna's face. It was probably jealousy and Nico felt bad for what he had said. Reyna had probably never met her mother, like most of the roman demigods.

"Octavian's army is reaching here day after tomorrow", she said quietly, "I did, what you Greeks call it, Iris message him about there being peace but he didn't seem too convinced"

Nico guessed he had to say something. "You will have to answer to a lot of crap for going to the ancient lands, right? Decided what you're going to do?" Nico was just being nice now. For the first time Reyna looked like a girl, not a praetor, even though she look brave and ready to pulverize anybody, if needed.

Reyna sighed, "I will go with the truth. That I decided to trust Annabeth's word. Honouring one of the Greek's wishes was the first step"

They sat there for a while, even though Nico wanted to leave. He didn't want to leave her alone. But he didn't know why he felt like showing such kindness. Was it his father who has inspired him in this way? Reyna was in no hurry to leave and Nico knew it must be terrifying for her to be at a camp full of Greeks. She had also recently lost her pegasus. He wouldn't have been able to bear it if Mrs. O'Leary died. And she wasn't even his.

Slowly dawn approached and Nico finally got up. He nodded at Reyna and walked back to his cabin.

He took a bath and cleaned up. Got dressed. He owned a couple of black t shirts and black jeans which were all randomly picked so his stepmother would stop complaining about how he dressed. By now she was probably tired of complaining. But with gods you never knew. Immortality apparently made you a bitch.

He ran his hands through his hair, which, by now, were shoulder length. Tufts of it came over his eyes. He ruffled his hair again and walked out for breakfast. He was late and glad about it because he didn't have to listen to stupid announcements regarding Greek/Roman peace. He slipped into the Hades's table which was as honourary as Hera's cabin. He ate a few French toasts and picked up an apple, and nibbled on it.

He caught Chiron looking at him carefully. He did look concerned but Nico just got up and left.

He shadow travelled straight to New York City, on the Upper East Side.

He knocked on the apartment door and a middle aged woman opened the door.

She had a sad look on her face, like most of the people Nico recently came across. Her eyes had dark circles under them. Her long brown hair was streaked with grey, but seeing Nico, her eyes twinkled.

"Oh, gods, Nico!", she exclaimed, pulling Nico into a hug.

It was weird for him because he had never expected her to hug him. But she was warm and smelt vaguely fruity. He guessed living mostly in the dark about their children turned parents into huggers. Or maybe parents were huggers. Nico would have no idea, would he? And he didn't mind if it comforted her. She pulled back and held him at arms length, her eyes somber.

"Please tell me he's alright", she whispered. Nico gulped, "He's fine. He's been in a lot of trouble lately. More than usual"

She laughed and her eyes glistened with tears, "It's great to see you, Nico. You'll have to give me all the details because Chiron has been very vague about everything"

She led him into the living room.

"It's good to see you too, Sally", Nico replied trying not to let his voice waver.

PERCY:

"Gaios?", Leo choked, "Please tell me this word sounding like Gaia is a coincidence."

Everybody blankly stared at the board.

"Can we run back to the ship now?", Piper asked hopefully.

"The ship ain't going anywhere, lady", Leo announced, "It's like it's been put to sleep"

'Put to sleep' reminded Percy of the god of dreams, Morpheus who had put all the New Yorkers to sleep during the last Titan war. But the last time they checked, the Minor gods weren't really opposing Olympus and he doubted the god could put machines to sleep.

Something tugged at the back of his mind that this was important but he couldn't figure our why.

He looked at Annabeth who had the classic look on her face. The look Percy had been seeing for years. The look that suggested that she probably knew what was wrong but didn't say it aloud so as to avoid scaring the others. Percy didn't like the idea of not knowing what they might face but he didn't push her.

"Is this some kind if a test?", Leo asked angrily, taking out random stuff from his belt and putting together a gun, "Because if it is, I'm ready to burn it down"

He took the gun apart as easily as he had put it together. Percy made a mental note to never mess with Leo's gadgets or machinery. Even if he could quench his fire, he probably couldn't dodge bullets.

Jason, along with Piper started walking towards the inhabited area with the others following close behind in pairs while Leo brought up the rear.

"If there's a monster here", Jason stated, "Then we're just going to look for it and kill it. Because until we do, we're not going anywhere"

He stopped and turned around to look look at the others, waiting for somebody to object.

As if in answer, Leo loaded his gun with celestial bronze bullets.

Annabeth had nothing to say which worried Percy, and Frank shrugged.

"I could trace magic on the engine", Hazel answered, "We probably have to make the person who cast it, undo it or..."

Or kill the person before he or she killed them. It was quite simple.

If they weren't going anywhere till they faced the person in question, Percy was all for hunting them down.

"So it's settled", Jason replied and started walking again.

Percy could tell that Jason was trying to be a leader even though he himself hadn't been so straight on the line, lately. He could see his younger self in Jason, the days when he would lead a quest and have the minimal idea about things and Annabeth had to save their asses.

"Gaios is a small island in the Greek province", Annabeth commented, like a tour guide but without the enthusiasm, "It mostly consists of hotels villas and shops as it happens to be mostly a tourist location.

"Worship here is basically catholic and hardly a bunch of people know that in the ancient times, it was an island dedicated completely to Gaia."

Everybody paled, except Leo who appeared to be not listening but instead making another gun.

"But in the battle between the Greeks and Romans, the temples and statues got destroyed and everything turned to rubble. Later, the Greek government cleared the area and turned it into a tourist spot"

Percy was glad that the statues and temples had been destroyed. He didn't think he could bear to look at the ugly earth mother without destroying her.

Then, Annabeth stopped abruptly and Percy's hand almost slipped out of hers. She looked really pale and her eyes looked dead.

Everybody stopped and Piper came over and put an arm around her. "You figured it out, didn't you?"

Percy didn't know what exactly she meant but Hazel gasped, "The giant?"

It didn't sound so good and he was almost afraid of what she would say.

"It- it might be nothing", she stuttered but Percy could tell it was definitely not nothing.

Before she could elaborate, a bunch of dracanae surrounded them from behind and a huge group of monsters followed.

The monsters were assorted, like a festive box of ugliness. Lines of dracaenae, hellhounds, telkhines, and at least two hyperborean giants surrounded them.

They must've been really stealthy because none of them had heard anything. Were they becoming so dim that they couldn't even hear a group of monsters approaching? How were they going to kill Gaia?

All of them were ready to pull their weapons out but sudden movements might have caused unwanted hostility so they made no movements at all.

One of the dracaenae stepped in front of them. She was probably the head of the Ugly Crew.

"We've been sent here to get you to out master", she hissed and spat the last word.

Annabeth stepped in front bravely, signalling with her hand behind her back to keep their weapons down.

Percy kept his thumb on Riptide's cap, ready to uncap it on the shortest notice.

He could see Jason's hand on his gladius and Hazel's on her spatha. Piper already had katoptris out and Frank held on to his bow.

Percy couldn't see Leo but he figured he too would have his guns on the ready.

"We're here to see your master", Annabeth announced boldly, "Lead us to him and we'll spare you"

The monsters became agitated and Piper stepped beside Annabeth, "We've been preparing to fight him for a long while". She waved katoptris in the air so the blade could be seen by each monster, "This is the blade of Helen Of Troy. It has been showing you and your master for weeks"

The monsters hissed and spat and growled but Hazel stepped beside Piper, "We've seen all your plans and strategies and it wouldn't take more than two of us to beat all of you, along with your master", she gulped, "He thinks he's so smart dropping our ship. We were going to land straight in front of him anyway. But we'll do with this"

Percy decided these three girls were smarter than he and the guys could ever be. They were brave and beautiful; talking calmly to these monsters about a giant they had no idea about. Or maybe they did and hadn't told the others? That thought wasn't settling.

The lead dracaenae hissed, "Follow us"

The monsters completely surrounded them and walked them to a large wooden door hidden in the sand. They slid it open and looked at Annabeth.

"You'll have to go through this, demigod", the dracaenae spat.

The door, as far as Percy could see, was attached to a huge tunnel like slide. Percy was sure it was big enough for Polybotes.

Annabeth bravely stepped into the tunnel and slipped down.

Piper hesitated but closed her eyes and slid in behind Annabeth. Hazel, Frank and Jason followed.

"You go first, Leo", Percy told him, shoving him towards the tunnel.

Leo reluctantly bent and said, "Whoever did this to my ship is going to pay. I swear on the river Styx"

The sky rumbled and Leo slid down the tunnel.

"Your turn, son of sea god", one of the telekhines barked.

Percy loved dogs but he had this sudden urge to go kick this tiny monster square in the chest. But he just bent and slid down the dark tunnel, trying not to shout.


	7. Chapter 7

_**This chapter is a little shorter than the others and to make up for it, I will upload Chapter eight by tomorrow because I've already finished it.**_

_**And, and, and, it's full of Jason/Nico friendship and a little of Percico. And there's a bit of Luke too.**_

NICO:

Between Annabeth and Percy's moms, Nico would choose Sally any day. Not because she was Percy's mom but because she was way more pleasant that the goddess.

She went into the kitchen and motioned for Nico to follow.

"Paul's in the university", she told him, pouring milk and different berries into a blender, "He got a new job"

Nico listened to her talk about the last few months without Percy with the occasional nod and "hmm".

She poured the milkshake in a glass and added blue food colouring and stirred the mixture.

Then stopped abruptly.

"I'm sorry, Nico", she apologized hastily, "I always added blue food colouring to Percy's food and it became kind of a habit, I hope you don't mind"

Nico took the glass and took a sip, "I love blue"

He gave her a genuine smile and her eyes watered again, but she wiped them off with the back of her hand.

She pulled out other utensils and flour and chocolate and other ingredients and replied, "I hope you don't mind cookies"

"Oh, no, Sally!", Nico exclaimed, "I had breakfast"

Nico felt weird calling her Sally but he wasn't sure if it was Ms. Jackson or Mrs. Blowfis, so Sally was much easier.

"Oh, these are just cookies", Sally replied and got to work. "You're so thin, you could do with some extra food"

Nico was sure she was excited about cooking for a kid after so many months.

"So tell me everything", Sally coaxed, "From the beginning. And don't even think about editing it"

So Nico didn't. He told her everything in detail and not the way Percy always edited, leaving out the dangerous parts. He had a mother and he owed it to her, Nico thought.

He made Percy sound like a hero, which was true but Percy would've never had the story told this way.

Sally tried to keep the worry out of her face but she dropped the cookie stencils twice.

When Nico finished, Sally finished the second batch of cookies.

"I'm glad he has more people with him, this time", Sally said putting some cookies on a plate and handing them to Nico.

The cookies were blue too. Nico took a bite and nearly gasped out loud. They were chocolate chip with the chips still melting. They tasted so good that Nico almost forgot to breath.

"They're amazing", was all he managed to get out.

"I'm glad you like them", she replied, leading Nico out of the kitchen to the living room. They settled on the couch and she added, "They are Percy's favourite"

Nico nodded solemnly, the cookie melting slowly into his mouth, the amazing taste dancing on his taste buds.

"I wanted to Iris message him, but Chiron told me it wasn't working well", Sally replied sadly.

Nico looked at her empathetically.

"Tell me about you, Nico", Sally enquired and Nico told her as much as he could without giving away too many facts. He talked about Camp Jupiter and Hazel and the Doors of Death.

Then he had an idea.

He went to kitchen sink and opened the tap. He put a plate in the sink and the water bounced off the plate and created a fountain kind of thing. Little water droplets were slowly floating through the air. He opened the hot water tap and the kitchen became foggy.

Sally had followed Nico into the kitchen and was waiting intently.

Nico opened the window and sunlight filtered through the vapours and broke into different colours.

"O, Iris, goddess of the rainbow, please accept my offering", he said to the water vapours.

He fished out a drachma from his pocket and dropped it into the mist and the coin vanished.

"Percy Jackson", he said lightly, but he blushed like a seventh grader.

The screen mist flickered and it showed a dark image. The seven of them were standing in front a horrible giant who sat on a bronze throne in some kind of a cave, surrounded by different monsters.

They looked like they had spent their free time walking through drainage pipes.

Their hair and faces were caked with mud. Though Percy still somehow managed to look attractive.

Sally gasped and one of the monsters near their Iris window heard them.

Very quickly, Nico turned the tap off and the connection was cut.

Sally looked at him with worried eyes, "Nico, I know you're a kid too and nobody deserves this but promise me you'll take care of Percy? And the others."

Nico looked at her blankly.

"I know they're older and very capable", she went on, "But they might forget important things while on the quest to destroy Gaia. Like their mortal hearts.

"I remember what you did for him during the titan war. You're the reason he got the mark of Achilles. And even though it was dangerous, it's the reason he saved everybody and managed to not die"

She choked up on the last word.

Nico was about to argue but Sally interrupted him before he even said something.

"This quest is going to twist them", she said seriously, "change them into something they're not. You need to remind them who they are and not who they're meant to be"

Nico realized Percy and Annabeth had changed after coming back from Tartarus. Hazel had changed after Hecate had guided her to Pasiphae. Frank had changed after saving them from Triptolemus. Jason had changed over the course of travelling without Percy and Annabeth, the burden of leadership affected him worse than he let on. Piper's powers were stronger and harder to avoid after she had woken Festus up. And Leo had changed after coming back from his mysterious trip from an equally mysterious island.

Sally was right. All this was for nothing if they all forgot who they were and only knew what the gods wanted them to be. To fight Gaia, they couldn't lose themselves.

For the first time, Nico was glad he wasn't part of something. He had just found himself and he wasn't ready to lose himself over some crazy junkie earth mother. And he didn't want be a hero but he realized since he wasn't a part of this, he could save the ones who were a part of this. To some extent, change was probably necessary but not so much that it would change their identities. Change was good, when for the better, not when for the worse.

And he didn't have anything to lose so he might as well.

Sally handed him a plastic container. It was full of blue cookies. She had tears in her eyes. "Ask Percy to never forget home"

Nico paled and nodded and silently walked to the door.

"Take care, Nico", Sally replied and closed the door behind him.

PERCY:

He slid down the huge pipe and landed on a slippery ground. This seemed more and more like a drain with each passing second. If drains existed under beaches.

Percy tried to calm himself. Somehow he felt very angry. Like he had when Hades had taken his mother, when Chiron told him Zeus wanted to blame him for stealing the master bolt, when he thought his dad was using him as a pawn, when he thought Tyson was dead, when the manticore took Annabeth. He didn't know why all of a sudden he felt like this but he did.

Side effect of holiday in Tartarus, he guessed.

He looked around and saw the others dusting their clothed which were caked with mud. He looked down at himself and noticed that he didn't look any better.

But all that didn't matter. They were in a cave near the ocean. Percy could feel the tide come and go without even looking at the cave entrance towards which they had their backs turned.

The monsters fell through the pipe and Percy was more than ever convinced that it was like a drain full of disgusting things.

But that wasn't the problem. The problem was the giant in the room.

He was as huge and as ugly as all of his family.

Oops, maybe not all his family, since gods were related to them too and Percy didn't like to think of them as ugly. Or their kids which included Annabeth.

His hair was in weird dreadlocks. Maybe he liked Bob Marley.

His skin was like rust. The flaky kind that keeps falling off.

Yes, his skin was falling off in a very disgusting way, like dandruff and it made Percy's stomach want to throw out whatever he had eaten last.

His eyes were pale blue and he looked like somebody had hammered his face.

The others had their weapons out and without realizing it, Percy also had Riptide drawn to full length.

The giant laughed a horrible gurgling sound, like a huge toilet flushing.

"So you little heroes are here at last", he exclaimed, raising his arms.

He was fully armoured in gold and held a huge double sided axe. Which was blood stained. Percy didn't want to know whose blood that was or how long it had been there.

"Welcome to my humble abode", he rumbled and the scales on his serpentile legs reflected the light coming from the cave's mouth and the reflections dances around the cave wall.

Piece of cake, thought Percy.


	8. Chapter 8

_**I guess the story isn't that bad, huh?**_

_**Soo, NICO IS BACK. **_

_**Thank you for the reviews!**_

ANNABETH:

"But this isn't your humble abode", she replied sweetly, "Is it?"

Deep inside she was scared as hell but she wouldn't let those feeling show. She was a hardened daughter of Athena.

"What, they aren't letting you enter Greece?", Piper asked and Hazel tsk-ed.

"A pity, huh?", Hazel asked with fake sympathy, "Porphyrion always gets the fame"

The giant growled.

Annabeth was glad that the girls were weaving up a story alongside her even though they didn't have the slightest idea who this giant was.

Or maybe Piper did, but Annabeth was glad anyway.

"What are you doing here, anyway?", she enquired, a little curious and the rest of it all taunt, " You're supposed to be in Procida"

"Buried under Procida", Piper added.

So Piper did know.

"Then you get sent to an even degraded place", Hazel pointed out.

The giant roared so loudly that the cave shook and water dropped from the ceiling.

"This island was named after my mother, dedicated to her in the ancient times", he said.

"And the ancient times are gone and so will you be, in a few minutes", Annabeth replied sharply.

"And what in name of Hades did you do to my eff-ing ship?", Leo roared, loudly enough but it was still meek compared the giant's roar.

"Just a little bit of magic", the giant laughed, "You see, I'm Mimas"

The demigods waited.

Mimas waited for some recognition.

And Annabeth stifled a laugh. This wasn't the time to laugh. She was going crazy.

"Are you saying you don't know who I am?", Mimas demanded.

Piper laughed. All the monsters seemed to be starstruck at hearing the musical tune.

"You're not that important, flaky face", she stated and laughed again.

"I'M THE BANE OF HEPHAESTUS", Mimas roared.

"I don't care, you're going back to Tartarus", Leo shouted and that moment, all Hades broke loose.

Percy, Jason and Leo went for Mimas.

They attacked him, slashing at his feet and dodging his clumsy attempt to slay them with his giant axe.

"What, did they make you as physically challenged as my father?", Leo shouted and jumped on his leg.

"Get his armour!", Annabeth shouted but only Jason heard her, who nodded in acknowledgement.

Just then, she felt something slimy fall on her feet. It was the head of a telekhine. Which had been sliced off clean by Piper.

She smiled, "Behind you", and Annabeth turned and sliced a dracaenae in half.

Frank and Hazel were doing really good on their own and the amount of monsters already looked less. They fought like they'd been born to fight alongside each other.

Maybe there was hope for them after all. This looked like a piece of cake. With an ugly giant for a side dish.

She looked at the sword in her hand and her stomach churned at the lack of her dagger. She wanted to throw up.

She heard a cry and noticed that Hazel had managed to kill a Cyclops who was about to attack Annabeth.

She swore. She had been saved too many times today.

Trying not think of Luke, Thalia or her precious dagger, she slashed through monsters like a routine until nothing remained except the giant.

Percy was rolling between the giants legs, slashing and cutting like mad man.

That Percy, scared, Annabeth. He was angsty and dangerous. And maybe a little unstable.

Leo had climbed up to the giants shoulder and was cutting his breastplate free while Jason distracted the giant.

Frank shot arrows at Mimas and golden ichor dropped from his wounds but he slapped away most of the arrows.

The girls looked at each other and nodded.

Together, they ran in to help the guys.

Piper was charmspeaking and distracting the giant, while Hazel tried not to faint as she sent the giant's heavy armoury into the ocean. Annabeth fought alongside Percy, as she had, so many times before.

"Call on your father", she screamed at Leo. "We can't kill him without a god"

The breastplate fell to the ground and Hazel made it fly straight into the ocean with such strength that she collapsed.

"What do we need?", Leo screamed as he jumped off Mimas's shoulder and Jason flew him to the ground.

"In the old days, they did with a volley of molten iron", Annabeth replied, dodging Mimas's axe.

"The gods will never help you", Mimas laughed maniacally and stood up, swinging his axe and making Piper and Frank jump around. "They're too puny and scared"

"You spoke too soon", Leo said, his tone deadly, "You evil son of a-"

Just then the drain pipe they had come through rattled.

Annabeth dragged Hazel away just in time when the pipe shot out iron balls with spikes.

As if he had always known it, Leo set each one of them on fire and hurled them at Mimas in a fiery inferno.

Minas roared and dodged a few but he couldn't anymore. He was overwhelmed by the hot iron canons which seemed to weaken him with each blow.

"What happened to her?!", somebody exclaimed beside Annabeth and she nearly slit his throat but he blocked it with easy as if he had anticipated it already.

"Nico, what are you doing here?", Annabeth asked as she stuffed ambrosia down Hazel's throat. Her eyelids flickered.

Nico looked at the growling giant who was blazing now while Frank shot arrows at him and Percy and Jason stood beside Leo as he fired flaming canons one after another.

"Everyone get away", He said but motioned Annabeth to stay with Hazel in one place.

Annabeth had no idea what he was going to do but she hoped he better did something good enough.

Everybody stepped back and the giant was shouted in ancient Greek.

Nico stuck his sword in the ground and the ground cracked open.

The crack widened and Mimas fell in the crack, screaming, cursing them in Greek.

Leo stood breathing heavily, still in flames.

"That's how thickheaded knuckleheads pay for messing my ship up", he muttered, smoking dramatically.

NICO:

They got back to the ship with everybody supporting each other.

Nico, as usually walked back alone. But he was trying not to be bitter. He was powerful, he wasn't one of the chosen and his immortal father loved him and was proud of him.

Not to mention he had seen Percy after SUCH a long while.

Okay, he was exaggerating. He mentally asked himself to shut up.

They got to the ship and Leo whistled as the engines hummed under his commands.

"Can we take the sea?", Percy asked and nobody objected. Leo showed him a thumbs up.

Annabeth kissed Percy and Nico looked away.

"I'll go get cleaned up", she told him softly but Nico heard her. She sounded inviting.

"You can go first", Percy replied shuffling her hair and Nico almost audibly sighed at Percy's thickheadedness.

Hazel and Piper went back to the cabins too and Frank took up the first watch. Jason decided to accompany him by not going into his cabin yet but sat down on the deck.

He looked at Nico expectantly and Nico made a mental note to go talk to Jason afterwards.

If he was going to be a better person he better start with the people who showed him kindness.

Just then Percy took off his half burnt tattered tshirt and stood near the railing feeling the salty spray of water.

Seeing Percy standing only in his jeans made Nico turn red and he felt hot all of a sudden.

He turned his back towards him and ended up facing Jason who was sitting under the foremast and trying not to laugh, a stupid grin on his face.

Nico rolled his eyes and decided it was best if he just sat down away from Percy unless he wanted Percy to wonder why he was getting so red.

Maybe he would think that he was getting a sunburn and offer to apply some sun screen lotion on him.

He mentally slapped himself. Enough.

Maybe he should try jumping off the ship.

Percy would probably try to save him, though, right?

Groaning out loud, he walked to the foremast.

He sat down beside Jason who wasn't smiling anymore.

"I'm sorry", he said seriously, "It's just that you looked funny"

Nico scowled and Jason really looked apologetic, even worried.

"Hey, look", Nico started, "I appreciate you understanding but I don't think you can do anything more"

"Look", Jason said, "You could still talk to me. You don't have to run away from company. Talking will make you feel better"

Nico's scowl deepened. "What are you, a son of Aphrodite?"

Jason was about to laugh but he stopped and studied Nico.

"Oh, you can laugh, you idiot", Nico muttered and Jason laughed softly.

"How are things back there?", Jason asked.

"Reyna reconciled the gods. Octavian's army will be reaching Camp Halfblood in a day", Nico replied fiddling with his skull ring.

"I know this might not be the best time for all this but I suggest you should do what you have to do", Jason said quietly, motioning towards Percy's back muscular back. "Before..."

Nico looked away quickly. He knew what he meant. Before they all died trying to stop Gaia.

It could also end well but that hardly ever happened to Halfbloods.

Nico just laughed though, "Are you sure you aren't related to Piper?"

Jason just stared at Nico with a surprised smile on his face.

Nico realized nobody had actually heard him laugh before. His face changed back to his all-time favourite: moody.

"Dude, he's looking", Jason murmured and before he could stop himself, Nico turned.

Percy was looking at them with a strange look, his dark curly hair windswept. His mouth hung open in a silly but cute way, his head tilted.

Nico turned back towards Jason as quickly as he could without making it obvious.

Enough niceness for today, he thought and got up.

"Later, Grace", he said to Jason.

"See you later, Di Angelo", Jason smiled and he looked his age again for a minute. Then his face creased with worry lines again.

Nico climbed on top of the foremast and sat on the yardarm and hummed an old Italian tune to himself that he faintly remembered his mother singing to him.

ANNABETH:

"Do you make me sleepy every time you want to talk to me?", Annabeth asked Luke as they sat down on the porch of the big house.

"Yeah, kinda", Luke smiled.

He looked like the version of him in the vision the Sirens had showed Annabeth ages ago. Handsome and full of energy.

He wore a tshirt that said, "I'm your ride to Elysium" in Greek.

Her heart skipped a few beats.

"You can't do that", she said, playfully smacking his arm.

"You and Thalia were my family", Luke said so bluntly, Annabeth almost fell off the porch. "You both were my family and I betrayed you. And my father. He didn't give up on me, I did."

Annabeth saw the pain in his face; the face so many girls fawned upon.

"I cannot go back", Luke said sadly, "Until I mend whatever I did wrong"

"But you did mend your relationships", Annabeth said soothingly, though her heart broke, "You did the right thing in the end"

"That's not the same Annabeth", he said in a voice which made Annabeth feel like she was seven years old again and Luke was her guardian and savior.

"I mended my relationship with my father and made his two forms reconcile long enough for him to help you guys out. But it's not so easy with you and Thalia"

"We'll do what you have to do", Annabeth replied instantly. She remembered the line of the prophecy the Oracle had said Annabeth when she was leading the quest into the labyrinth. To lose a love to worse than death.

This was the chance to save Him.

Her heart suddenly turned cold. Love?

She loved Percy. She was more than sure of that.

Luke looked at her like he knew exactly what she was thinking. "Everything is not always so simple", he said softly.

She nodded still in doubt.

"What do we do?", she asked in a hurry to get out everything once and for all.

"All in good time", Luke said soothingly, "Now tell what's been up?"

So Annabeth talked. Just the way they used.

For a moment, Annabeth could almost imagine being back at camp Halfblood.

Before Luke became bitter.

Before Kronos.

Before Percy.


	9. Chapter 9

PERCY:

He watched Nico climb to the yardarm and quickly turned when Nico caught his eye.

Nico seemed different somehow. More at easy. As if he had come to some kind of an understanding somehow.

Percy planned on talking to him and hoped he wouldn't push him away again. He had this urge to protect everybody lately from the unfairness of this all.

He had always wanted to be a normal teenager. Guess the emotional unbalance was catching up with him.

It was nice to see that Nico was able to have a conversation with someone without getting angry even though it was weird that he would choose Jason.

Jason walked upto Percy.

"I'll go clean out Coach Hedge's room", he told him. When Percy looked at him uncomprehending, he added, "For Nico to stay"

"Oh", Percy replied, "Oh, yeah. Okay"

Jason patted him in the back and left.

Great, now a kid was treating him like he was an idiot.

Percy stood there for a while, facing towards the ocean, feeling the spray of water on his face and bare chest.

Somebody cleared his throat and Percy turned, almost jumping.

Nico stood there with his hands in the pocket of his aviator's jacket. He was slightly red, probably all the fighting and Leo's fire had slightly singed him.

"There's something I need to show you", he said.

Percy nodded. Then he added, "Uh, Nico you look kinda red. Are you sure you aren't burnt? Are you hot?"

Nico turned pale and scowled slightly. "I'm fine", he replied tightly.

There it was again. Nico's walls went up as soon as Percy talked to him. He wondered for the millionth time why Nico still hated him so much.

Motioning Percy to follow him, he walked to the kitchen.

As soon as Percy reached the kitchen, Nico stopped him.

"Close your eyes", he ordered.

Still confused, Percy closed his eyes.

He heard Nico open the kitchen door.

"Walk straight", Nico guided.

And obviously, Percy walked into the kitchen counter.

"Oww", he complained and was about to open his eyes when Nico shouted, "No, keep them closed!"

"Nico, I will end up banging into everything and manage to make stuff fall", Percy replied irritatedly.

There was silence. He wondered if he had said something wrong.

"Okay, open your eyes", he heard Nico say but this time the voice was very close. He could almost feel the coldness off the son of Hades.

He opened his eyes and saw Nico standing right in front of him, holding a plastic container.

Which contained blue cookies.

At first Percy just stared at them with eyes wide.

Those couldn't be what he thought they were.

"Did you make those", he asked stupidly.

Nico rolled his eyes and blew the strands of hair out of his eyes.

"No, silly, your mom made them", Nico replied and Percy couldn't tell if he was sarcastic.

He took the container from him, and slowly opened it. The familiar smell of his mother's cookies wafted out and he knew even before picking up one, that his mother had made them.

His eyes stung but he blinked hard.

He picked one up and the familiar homely taste of the cookies burst on his tongue and he almost choked.

Nico was looking at him intently but Percy didn't know what to say. What could he say anyway? Thank you? Ask him how he got the cookies? Offer him a cookie?

Anything he could say would be irrelevant and pointless.

"I went to see your mother", Nico answered even though Percy had said nothing.

He wanted to ask him how she was. He wanted to ask him if he had explained things to him. He wanted to ask him if he had met Paul. He wanted to ask him what his mother had said.

He wanted to ask him so many things that all the words clogged his throat.

"She's as okay as she can be without her son", Nico replied and the last three words got slightly caught in his throat.

It did occur to Percy that Nico had no family except Hazel and his immortal father who wasn't really a nominee for the best father award.

Percy nodded again and Nico left the kitchen.

He stood there with a container full of blue cookies.

He went back to his room and saw Annabeth curled up on the bed. She looked so peaceful, and even more beautiful in her sleep that Percy couldn't help but kiss her on her cheek. She smelled of tropical flowers and her curly blond hair shone like gold and covered half her face.

Percy smiled and went to clean up.

He took a shower and wore a Camp Halfblood tshirt and pyjamas. Then he crawled into the bed beside Annabeth and put an arm around her as she turned to face him in her sleep.

His eyelids slowly got heavy and shut down and he drifted to a deep sleep.

Then the dreams pulled him into a different world.

He stood in a huge old Greek room with twelve thrones. The walls had pictures depicting various important moments of ancient Greece. It was obviously Olympus but with a chill he realized it was the original mount Olympus.

In the center of the room was a huge bronze cauldron. Beside the cauldron stood, unmistakably, Zeus. He did look way younger than he was now. He would've passed for a 25 year old. He wore a white chiton and a heavy golden crown on his head. He waved his hand over the cauldron and it shimmered. The dark blue liquid in the cauldron boiled

Percy was about to peek inside the cauldron to get a closer look when Zeus thundered, "Hermes!"

Hermes flew into the room with a large plate, the size of a table top. Hermes looked younger and more handsome than he did now. "Father", he said, bowing. Then he emptied the platter in the cauldron.

Percy nearly threw up when he saw what the platter contained.

It had chopped up parts of a human being, a young boy.

The rest of the Olympians slowly filled into the room and Percy noticed an old lady in a long white bed sheet walk in.

Okay, maybe it wasn't a bed sheet but it was weird dress in multiple folds.

She had wispy silver hair and her face was like leather. She moved slowly, her bony hands folded in front of her.

Percy's spine tingled and something told him that this lady was one of the Fates.

She walked to the cauldron and spoke in a language older than Greek which Percy did not understand. But her voice was more like hissing.

A satyr walked into the room. His horns were very long and curly and they looked like they were made of the most beautiful polished wood even though Percy had no idea about wood. His beard and fur on the goat legs were golden, the colour of corn. His eyes twinkled like dewdrops under the beautiful moonlight on a spring dawn before the moon went down and sun fully came up.

"Pan", Percy whispered and recalled the older version of the Lord they had met while exploring the labyrinth.

Pan walked around the cauldron and waves of magic rolled off him and into the cauldron. He danced extremely gracefully, a dance of joy, which Percy had no idea how he did it in those hooves.

Just then the surface of the cauldron broke and a young boy was lifted into the air.

The boy was stark naked. His eyes closed, he was levitating in midair.

He was beautiful, Percy could tell. His face cut, his body structure were like that of a god. Entrancing. His skin glowed a milky white and his blond hair fell in waves. He was muscular and well built.

The only problem was his missing shoulder.

A woman with lustrous black hair and warm brown eyes filled with grief, stepped forward. Her long white dress shifted in earthly colours and her hair was braided with grass.

Percy recalled the unfortunate events that led to him first meeting this woman. But now she looked so depressed, he almost felt sorry for her.

Demeter raised her hands and closed her eyes. She twirled her fingers and the boy's missing shoulder grew back, though in a more purer white colour.

Percy somehow knew it was ivory.

Another woman walked into the room.

And before she entered, Percy knew she was different from all the gods.

She walked in gracefully and even without looking at her Percy knew she was a woman of great power. Even in his dream her power staggered him.

Her long black hair was braided with silver and gold. She had a circlet around her head and a gem that rested between her eye brows. The gem changed colour each second. Her eyes, like the gem, changed colour, but not the way Aphrodite's eyes did to suit your eye colour preferences. Her eyes changed colour with light.

Her face was regal and soft. But her arms were muscular, like those of a warrior. A dagger with a blade of something older and way more powerful than celestial bronze or imperial gold, hung at her waist.

The gods seemed to bow their heads in respect and Percy found himself doing the same out of subconscious compulsion, though he knew not why. And nobody could see him anyway, but he bowed his head.

She waved her hand casually and the boy was dressed in a white chiton embroidered with golden.

She went closer and held the boy's face in her hands.

Pan continued to dance around the cauldron, now including the woman on his circle.

She brought her face close to the boy's and whispered, "Live again, Pelops"

Even though she whispered, Percy could tell her voice was rich and it tugged at the very core of his being.

The boy's eyes snapped open. They were a beautiful blue, sparkling royal blue, speckled with turquoise.

"Thank you, mother", Zeus said and bowed to the woman and that's when it hit Percy.

This woman was Rhea, the mother of the gods and the queen of the titans. Percy's grandmother.

"Lead them to the feast, son", she said to Zeus warmly. She turned to smile at two other Olympians who Percy hadn't noticed before.

One of them was tall and muscular and was dressed in his armour. His long hair was held together by a brooch and his face was scarred, his jaw line prominent. He looked angry and disturbed and momentarily he reminded Percy of Nico.

Rhea took his hand and said in ancient Greek, "You are here with me today, my eldest. Please do not distance yourself"

Oh. Now Percy knew why this guy reminded him of Nico.

She led him out of the room as the other Olympians filed out but before leaving she turned to smile towards the other guy who had been standing beside Hades.

When Percy looked at the other guy, he nearly collapsed. If it was possible to collapse in a dream.

The guy was Percy.

Okay, not Percy, but a thousand times better version of Percy.

His face looked better chiselled, his arms and legs were perfectly tanned and toned. He was slightly taller. His black curly hair was more shiny and prettier. He stood more confidently and smiled casually but genuinely. He wore a white chiton but it didn't matter. He would've looked good even in a potato sack. His sea green eyes twinkled with love.

All the Olympians had left the room except the better version of Percy and the cauldron boy, Pelops.

Pelops struggled to move. It was like he was trying to move underwater, from the looks of it.

Better-version-of-Percy supported Pelops and helped him balance himself.

"Welcome to the world, again, Pelops", Better-version-of-Percy said, his voice deep and rich. "We're glad you're whole again"

Pelops straightened himself and brushed the blond hair out of his enchanting blue eyes.

"Thank you, Lord", Pelops replied. His voice did justice to his face, "But if it's not too rude, may I ask who you are?"

Better-version-of-Percy laughed, his eyes twinkling with mischief. Then smiled coyly, "I'm Poseidon"


	10. Chapter 10

_**Okay, this chapter was a little late, due to internal conflict about where the story should go. I still can't chose; Percabeth or Percico.**_

_**Buuut, We'll see where the story goes. Trust me when I say this, I have as much idea about this story, as you do.**_

_**And, and, and, your reviews have been very inspiring, thank you. **_

NICO:

Jason led him to coach Hedge's room. He had tidied the whole room and it didn't even smell like goat anymore.

"Thanks", Nico mumbled, and Jason patted his back and left.

Nico removed his jacket and tshirt and looked in the full size mirror that hung on the wall beside the bed.

He didn't look like anything impressive. His hair was too long. His eyes too dark. His cheekbones and jaw line too prominent. His lips too narrow. His body, muscular, but not heavy built. With various small scars.

He almost punched the mirror and shattered it.

No, he was going to be a better person. No wallowing in self-hatred.

He turned and went into the shower after losing the rest of his clothes.

He cleaned up and opened the duffel bag he had brought from the Hades cabin before shadow travelling here. He was definitely not going to wear the bright orange Camp Halfblood tshirt.

He pulled out an AC/DC tshirt and slipped into it.

He went back to the mirror. He needed a haircut. But he didn't want one. He didn't know what to do.

He stopped himself, yet again, from punching the mirror.

He went out and into the deck and climbed the foremast and sat down.

He didn't know how long he sat there. The sky darkened and dawn was on it's way when the air in front of him shimmered.

He drew out his sword but it was just an Iris message.

Reyna's worried face came into focus.

She was panting and her Camp Halfblood tshirt was torn. Her medals and praetor badge were still pinned to her t shirt. Her hair stuck out from her braid. She appeared to be in the camp Halfblood forest.

Nico knew because he himself had spent a lot of time there.

"I really didn't know who else to contact", she said breathing heavily.

"Okay, okay, calm down, Reyna", Nico said softly, "You don't need to hesitate or be embarrassed, just tell me what happened?"

Reyna took a deep breath and turned to slash and behead a giant scorpion that had crawled up behind her.

Then she turned to face Nico again. "I met this beautiful pegasus and Chiron said I could have her if I wanted. I was getting her ready so I could greet Octavian as a praetor should but then the pegasus heard something and sauntered towards the woods and I tried to follow it and, well...". She faltered.

"And...?", Nico asked and he heard growling sounds from Reyna's side.

"Uh, I lost my way and I've been fighting weird creatures ever since", Reyna replied urgently, "It's so silly, a Roman praetor getting lost in a forest. I couldn't contact Chiron, he'd think I'm an idiot. I couldn't contact the Oracle, Rachel either. Any of the other seven would think I'm incompetent and there was only you."

"You got lost in a Greek camp; it's okay, relax", Nico replied.

Reyna growled and disintegrated another scorpion that had appeared.

She looked disheveled. "Tell me where to go, Son of Pluto, and fast!", she exclaimed angrily as a crazy plant wrapped it's shoot around her leg and she struggled to cut the tendrils off.

Nico suppressed a smile. "Hades, actually. Go straight and you'll come across a huge boulder with flowers growing on it. Take a left turn from there around a juniper tree and run straight. You'll reach the canoe lake"

Reyna looked relieved and Nico added, "Iris message me when you are safe" and Reyna vanished into a mist.

Nico chuckled slightly but the wind blew it away.

After a while, Reyna iris-messaged again. She looked better this time. No monsters after, her hair looked tightly tied again and she stood with a white Pegasus.

"Thanks, Nico", she said to him, her face red with embarrassment.

"Don't worry about it", Nico assured her and climbed down the mast.

He walked back to his room and faced the mirror again.

He took out a celestial bronze Swiss knife and started cutting the long strands of hair that fell on his face, blocking his vision partially. If he couldn't see in battles, he'd be in trouble.

He was halfway through cutting it when the Argo lurched to a stop and the knife slashed open his cheek.

His face burned and blood poured down to his lips. The metallic tinge of his blood filled his mouth and he rushed to the bathroom and spit the blood into the sink.

He washed the rest of the blood from his face and examined the long gash that spread over his cheekbone.

He threw the knife across the room and picked up a rubber band and tied his hair back into a small ponytail.

He opened the door and walked out of his room.

He walked into the mess hall and found Leo and Percy hogging on pizza.

They were a weird duo, he thought.

Percy looked up to see Nico and nearly choked on his pizza. He looked like he had seen a ghost.

Nico picked up an apple and sat down beside Leo, facing Percy, who gulped his pizza down, his eyes still wary.

He wondered what was up with that.

"Why'd we stop?", Nico asked Leo as he bit into the apple.

"Need more ammo before we get too close to Greece", Leo replied through mouthfuls, "We're not low, but we better be careful.

"Festus did a scan. Celestial bronze is nearby, in a cave just below the cliff right there". He made random hand movements and pointed at random directions. He was too busy with his pizza to be precise.

Just then Jason came out of his room, rubbing his eyes. He grabbed one of the magic plates and sat down beside Percy. He looked at Nico and smiled faintly. Bacon and eggs appeared on his plate and he started to gulp then down.

Looking at their appetite made Nico lose his.

"Where are the girls?", Leo asked Jason.

"Still sleeping", he said with his mouth full.

"Funny how Frank isn't here either", Leo said in good humour.

"We should get this done as fast as we can", Percy said, a little agitated.

"Don't we need Hazel to find the exact location and stuff?", Jason asked between bites.

"Actually, no", Leo said proudly, "Festus zeroed on the location when he scanned the surroundings"

"Let's go get it then, no need to worry the girls", Percy said, finally pushing his plate away. Nico thought he was never going to stop.

"Me and Percy will go", Jason offered.

"Uh, no at least three", Leo said, "I'll come too"

"Uh, no", Nico interrupted, "Leo you're better on the ship"

Leo looked like he would've argued but Jason piped in, "Yeah, Nico, come along"

He gave an apologetic look to Leo who shrugged.

"Yeah, there's nothing we can't take care of", Percy joked.

In half an hour they were trekking down the cliff to the cave where Leo had told them the celestial bronze was.

"Why does it always have to be caves", Percy asked irritated.

Jason was leading the way. He kept looking back at Nico encouragingly. He had to keep control of himself so that he didn't push the son of Zeus from the cliff and make it look like an accident.

Percy looked disturbed. He kept walking carelessly, almost plummeting to his death about five times.

"If you're so interested in jumping off a cliff, I could help you", Nico offered.

Percy scowled at him.

"Maybe you shouldn't have come", Nico went on, "You seem unsettled"

"Annabeth kept murmuring Luke's name yesterday night in her sleep", he blurted out. Now that he had said it, he just looked worried.

Nico just replied casually, "At least she wasn't screaming HIS name last night"

Jason snorted, "Isn't he the guy who travelled with her and Thalia?"

Percy looked at him quizzically. He probably didn't know that Jason had any idea about Luke.

They reached the mouth of the cave. They were about to enter but suddenly Jason turned and threw his gladius like a spear at Nico.

Too stunned to react, Nico stood there but the gladius missed him and hit something behind him.

He turned, hearing a cry and monster dust fell on his face.

A panther with gigantic wings clawed towards Percy but Nico beheaded him and he disintegrated.

Too soon, they were fighting a dozen of those creatures.

"Gryphons", Percy managed to shout. "They collect shiny stuff. The celestial bronze must be theirs"

"Or Gaia set this up, knowing we would stop if we found celestial bronze", Jason suggested slashing a gryphon through the middle.

"Who cares why they're here, let's just get the bronze and move.", Nico growled beheading two of them.

Percy moved in close and defended him while he ran into the cave.

There were rows of celestial bronze armour. Though Nico wasn't sure what celestial bronze armour did. The armours were weirdly shaped. A normal person wouldn't fit into it. There was a lot of it and he had no idea how there were going to carry it. He rushed out just to see Jason fry a line of gryphons with lightening.

But the worst thing was that there were more than a dozen. He didn't know how they were going to fight all of them.

"There's too much!", Nico shouted to Jason and five gryphons came at him.

Percy slammed a wall of salt water into a couple of them and they disintegrated.

Nico wished he had learnt to control the waves of darkness that he had emitted in his father's castle and disintegrated the furniture. The waves of darkness would've been useful right now.

"Hazel!", Jason screamed but Nico knew she couldn't have heard him. But the wind carried his voice to the Argo.

Soon the ship came sailing into view and the half the gryphons flew towards the ship.

Now two dozen gryphons were attacking the ship and two dozen were attacking them.

Just then the cave rumbled and even the gryphons seemed stunned. Then the bronze armour flew out of the cave towards the ship.

Nico fought of the gryphons who were trying to grab on to the flying celestial bronze. Monster dust flew around here and there while Jason electrocuted the rest as Percy drenched them.

On the ship, Frank and the girls seemed to be working hard but the gryphons seemed to have struck Piper down. Hazel had collapsed after bringing all the celestial bronze to the ship.

Just then a sharp pain erupted from Nico's left side. Then he felt warmth on his left leg.

He looked down to see his t shirt and pant soaked in blood. His whole body felt like it was on flames.

And he knew EXACTLY how THAT felt because, well, Tartarus.

He collapsed to the sandy ground and monster dust fell on him. He saw a whirlpool above his head and electricity and the gryphons blasted into dust. It looked like fireworks.

His eye lids fluttered.

His heartbeat slowed.

There were no gryphons in sight but he could hear their growls and shrieks in the distance.

He was feeling sleepy. Maybe he should've just closed his eyes for a while...

"Nico!", Percy's cry made his eye lids fly open.

His face was full of horror, his face pale but his eyes still sparkling and his hair windswept.

Nico had this ridiculous urge to smile. And he did.

Jason crouched beside Percy but stayed at a distance.

"No, Nico, no, don't you dare", Percy cried. Jason handed him a flask and he poured nectar on his left side. Nico cried out in pain and his voice rang through the cave. He felt his muscles, sinew and skin come and melt together again. But the pain was still there, burning his body, taking over his mind. Not allowing him to think.

"No!", Percy growled as Nico was about to close his eyes again, "I promised Bianca. You're not dying"

Nico coughed and smiled again. He fumbled and grabbed Percy's shirt.

He pulled him close and pressed his lips against Percy's. He tasted salty and a sea breeze blew around them. It cooled some of Nico's pain. He could almost feel the gentle waves of the sea lapping against his feet which should've been impossible because the sea was half a mile away.

He smiled against Percy's lips. This seemed like a good way to die.

He shut his eyes tight and let go of Percy, let go of himself. He vaguely felt strong hands grasp him, but it didn't matter anymore.

There was distant shouting but he hardly heard it.

He slipped off, still smiling, his lips tingling.

**_Okay, so I'm just gonna go ahead and say this._**

**_Nico isn't dead._**

**_That's all for now._**


	11. Chapter 11

**_Okay, Hellooooo. I hope you like this chapter and I'll post the next one sooner, I hope. Sorry if you feel this one is a little shorter._**

PERCY:

There was a lot of shouting.

And there was a lot of blood, of course.

Oh, and there were a lot of gryphons too.

Nico lay in Percy's arms, dying.

Nico had laughed and kissed him before going limp. Percy had felt like he was floating, as if his spirit was leaving his body, the feeling one got while going on a loop on a rollercoaster. Was that another one of Death's tricks?

But none of registered, really.

Percy had squeezed his eyes shut.

He stood with Bianca Di Angelo in Cloudcroft.

"You risked your life to save me and my brother. That was seriously brave. If I hadn't met you, I wouldn't have felt okay about leaving Nico at the camp. I figured if there were people like you there, Nico would be fine. You're a good guy", she told him. He felt the compliment warm him to his bones, just like the way it had on that precise day. This was the upside of being a demigod. People believed in you and what you did, it inspired you.

Then the scene changed.

He found himself standing in Hephaestus' junkyard with Bianca Di Angelo standing beside him. Her long dark hair was done in a pretty braid and she had a silver circlet around her head. Her skin shone like the moonlight. That probably had to do something with joining an eternal girls club.

But her eyes were serious. They were dark and contemplating and clouded with worried. Also, determined.

"Give this to Nico, if something happens", she told Percy, pressing the Hades figurine in his palm. Her eyes seemed to be pleading him to take care of her little brother as if she knew her doom was here and had accepted it.

He jerked his eyes open. He was still frozen on the ground. He could hear Jason shouting and fighting.

But he only wondered what Bianca Di Angelo would say.

How could they have forgotten to bring some ambrosia?

Anger welled inside him and he got up.

Enough was enough. Too much had been lost in this war.

He slashed through gryphons with such ease, the remaining ones backed off.

He could hear Annabeth shouting from the ship.

He noticed that the flock of gryphons flying over the ship, were moving towards land as the ship started to move into the open ocean.

"PERCY! JASON!", Annabeth screamed on top of her lungs. "COME ABOARD"

Percy looked at Nico's body lying on bloodied sand and he saw almost thirty gryphons trying to get close to the ship without going into the open ocean.

They couldn't make it to the ship with Nico in this frail condition. Even if Percy or Jason could've easily carried him, they didn't know what moving him may do to him. Also, gryphons were known to completely finish the ones they had attacked. And Nico wasn't in the prophecy so there was no chance Gaia would keep him alive.

Also, he didn't know if the others could make it out of here alive since Annabeth and Frank were the only ones fighting. Leo shot through the ballistae but the gryphons dodged easily.

He realized there was only one thing they could do. They would have to let their friends escape.

He heard Gaia's voice laugh, "_The things you would do for love, Percy Jackson_", she said mockingly.

He looked at Jason and saw a familiar look in his eyes. He nodded to Percy and they both charged at the gryphons together creating a whirlpool with sea water and horridly strong winds.

They were a beautiful and terrifying sight, Percy was later told. They looked like gods inside a hurricane destroying monsters like Charybdis destroyed everything that came near it.

"ANNABETH, GO", Percy roared through the storm. He wished the world would find a better storm to fall to and ignore them.

He could see Annabeth standing in the dock slashing the last gryphon as the ship travelled into the open ocean at alarming speed and the gryphons attacked Percy and Jason instead.

He could see her cheeks glistening with tears, but her eyes were serene. He knew that she knew that this had been the only way, just like they had left Bob and Damasen in Tartarus.

He felt a pang in his chest at that memory and also at the fact that she hadn't tried harder to save him and Jason. He knew he would've done everything he could to save any of the seven if they would've been stuck in his situation.

But he had been told that his fatal flaw was his loyalty.

By Annabeth's own mother.

But she's not her mother, he told himself but he felt queasy at the thought.

He and Jason fought with such ferocity that the rest of the gryphons flew away.

Once the gryphons were dead and gone, they rushed to Nico.

Jason ripped Nico's shirt off and inspected him.

He was still as pale as ever but his left abdomen was starting to look better. It still looked bluish but the wounds had been sealed.

Percy took the flask of nectar and put some into Nico's mouth. His skin felt so cold he might have been dead.

"He's not", said Jason, as if reading Percy's mind. "Dead, I mean. His heart still beats, but faintly"

Percy kept his palm on Nico's chest. The faint beating of his heart could be felt through his hard chest.

He walked to the ocean and created a faint spray and dropped a drachma into the water spray.

"O, Iris, goddess of the rainbow, please accept my offering and show me Annabeth Chase", he said softly and the mist shimmered.

Annabeth sat on the deck in her vest nursing her wounded shoulder while Frank took care of Hazel and Piper took a bite of ambrosia. Leo was nowhere to be seen.

"Annabeth", he said trying to keep the urgency out of his voice and she turned to look at him.

"Oh, gods, Percy, you're alive", she said worriedly, "We tried to get you but the magnitude of the storm you and Jason created was so strong that it blew the Argo off course"

"It's okay", Percy replied bluntly, "Is everyone okay there?"

"Piper got knocked out, Hazel fainted and Frank did a hell of a job", she told him, "But Leo is very happy about all the celestial bronze and he talks about destroying Gaia like coach Hedge."

"Nico is hurt", he added shiftily and Annabeth chewed on her lip.

"Leo has to fix the ship too. But tell me, where do we rendezvous?", she asked, pausing only to resume, "How about Pirgos? It isn't too far from here and by the time we reach there, I hope Nico will have healed and Leo will have fixed the ship"

Percy nodded, "I love you"

Annabeth looked at him as if he had hit his head, her eyes glistening, "I l-"

The connection was cut off and she never got to reply to his words.

He turned his back on the setting sun, as the moon came up.

He walked back into the forest where Jason had set up camp with whatever they had had.

Nico's duffel bag contained a few dry fruits and a few t shirts. A bottle of nectar. An mp3 player. A bundle of cash. A pouch of drachmas.

Jason was talking to some wood nymphs who were smiling at him flirtyly and making constipated faces which Percy guessed was their way of impressing the son of Zeus

A low fire was burning and Percy sat down beside Jason and told him about his talk with Annabeth. He was glad to know that everyone was okay.

The nymphs were singing softly and at their voices Nico seemed to stir.

Percy quickly went and kneeled beside him and pulled the rubber band out of his hair, letting Nico's hair loose.

Nico opened his dark eyes and for a moment tried to focus them.

Then he realized who he was looking at and groaned and turned and hid his face in the grass.

Jason laughed, relieved and Percy backed off surprised.

Jason knelt over Nico and helped him sit up. But he still looked very weak, ready to collapse. He could barely keep his eyes open.

Percy got the flask of nectar and was about to pour some into Nico's mouth but he groaned again turning towards Jason.

Exasperated, Percy handed the flask to Jason and lay down on the opposite side of the fire. He didn't understand why Nico had to hate him.

And that's when it all FINALLY registered and everything came crashing.

If he was about to die, what would he have done?

Probably something he had wanted to do for a long time.

So, Nico didn't hate him. But actually quite the opposite. Di Angelo had feelings for him.

Scared of the actions he might've taken in the past or might have to take in the future, Percy urged sleep to take him.

And it did, plunging him into the world of Poseidon and Pelops.

NICO:

He could hear faint singing in the background. His eyes wouldn't open too much but he could see Jason kneeling beside him.

"Open your mouth, you need nectar", Jason ordered.

"Are you trying to kill me?", Nico croaked, "That's too much nectar for one day"

"You're strong enough", Jason argued, "you'll be fine"

He opened his mouth and poured some nectar into it but the warmth Nico felt inside him had a little to do with the nectar and more to do with the compliment.

"This is the worst way things could've ended", Nico complained, "Why am I alive?"

He peeked at Percy who had turned his back toward them and probably fallen asleep.

Jason smacked Nico upside the head. "Dude, shut up. This is going to be fun."

"Fun? ", Nico nearly choked, "I nearly died. I kissed Percy!", he hissed, his eyes flashing.

He could see the humour in Jason's eyes but he kept the smile off his face. "What I meant was that the sons of the big three will get some quality time to spend together"

Nico growled. "I don't think this is the time for some 'quality time'"

"Oh, but I think this is exactly what we need", Jason grinned.

"Have I ever told you I hate you, Grace?", Nico sighed.

"No, and you will never get the chance too", Jason smirked, "Now lie down and sleep. We have a lot ahead of us"

Nico did lie down but didn't sleep. He tried but he couldn't. Embarrassment kept him awake. He would have to face Percy soon enough but he didn't know what he would say. How would he justify his actions? Hey, Percy, sorry, dude, I thought I was dying and that's why kissed you. No hard feelings, huh?

How could he have been so stupid? If he was going to die, he should've let his secret die with him. But now, he wasn't dead but the secret was out. And now he didn't know what to do.

He turned to face Jason who was staring into the fire, deep in thought.

"Thank you", he said to him softly. He didn't know why but it seemed like the right thing to say.

Jason just smiled and nodded.

Nico turned again and fell into a, thank the gods, dreamless sleep.


	12. Chapter 12

_**Thank you so much for your reviews! They're VERY VERY inspiring. I only hope my writing keeps up with all your expectations.**_

PERCY:

If somebody would've told him that his father literally chased a mortal boy around Olympus, he would've declared that person crazy.

But to actually see it for himself, it was a hundred times worse.

It wasn't that it repulsed him to see a person get doe eyed for another person of the same sex. It was just that any kind of love affair of the gods repulsed him.

He watched as Poseidon chased after Pelops around Olympus and the younger boy kept hiding behind a temple, a fountain or a statue, shyly.

He noticed that his dream had a slight sea green tinge around the border and then things started to click together.

Just then Pelops gave in and let Poseidon escort him to his magnificent golden chariot let by four beautiful golden horses.

"Dad", Percy called, not to the Poseidon in the dream but in general.

"Dad! I know you're right here. Get me out of here!"

No response.

"Dad?", Percy asked uncertainly, "Get me out!"

No response.

By now, Poseidon's chariot had reached a part of Olympus that seemed completely dedicated to him.

"DAD!", Percy shouted insistently, "I'm pretty sure there's some adult rated stuff coming up here with you starring in them. I'm can assure you that mom won't be too fond of me getting scarred for life, let alone my own feelings on that matter."

Percy waited and slowly the scene dissolved and Percy let out a sigh.

He appeared in front of Poseidon's castle, underwater, in the front garden. His father himself stood in front of him, inspecting one of the underwater bushes.

"Dad", Percy said again, this time a little less harshly. "What was all that?"

"I thought, you ought to know about me and Pelops", Poseidon sighed.

"Uh", Percy replied, "An email would've worked. I didn't need a full high definition playback"

Poseidon didn't look too well. He was generally very calm and collected. Percy saw him as one of the wiser Olympians but that could've been because he was his father too. Now he just looked strained and worried.

"It's just that with the recent things that have been going on-", Poseidon started but Percy cut him off.

"I'm not gay, dad", he replied, understanding what he father was probably getting at.

Poseidon sighed again, this time slightly irritated.

"Perseus", he said and it came off too strong and Percy winced, "Would you say I am gay? Yes, I was in love with Pelops, I was in love with your mother, I have been in love with my wife. I have had kids! 'Gay' is a label invented by mortals, Perseus, and it will not apply to you unless you choose it to"

Percy tried to take in everything his dad had said. "Then what was this about, father?"

"This war, against Gaia", Poseidon said in a low voice, "Is something much larger than the titan war. Every choice that you make has a particular effect on the current situation. Each choice matters and tips the scale of balance in the direction of or against our favour. Seven of you have been thus chosen and each is very important in their own way. Hera's gamble has paid off, it looks like. But listen to me carefully, daughter of wisdom has problems of her own going on. The son of Jupiter will help you, and so will the son of Mars. And you still need the son of Hades. Be careful. Your loyalty will get you killed"

Percy went cold. Poseidon didn't say may, or might, or probably. He said will. "Your loyalty will get you killed". As if it was undoubtedly sure.

Anger bubbled inside Percy. He was a pawn already, just like Gaia had said. But a pawn of the gods.

"You despair too soon, son", Poseidon said softly, noticing Percy's face full of hopelessness, "Death will come, but for the first time, it won't be necessarily permanent. I have faith in you and the others, Percy. If we have a chance of winning, it is only because of the choices you make."

His body did become a little warmer after hearing that.

"Now, it's time for you to wake up", his father said, his voice already distant, "The roman needs rest too"

Percy woke up with a jolt. And that too in time.

Jason looked ready to pass out.

"Hey, hey, hey", Percy called out and Jason's eye lids opened up all the way, "Sleep", he ordered and that did it. Just hearing the word made Jason's body go limp and head go down and he fell asleep in an awkward angle. His body was definitely going to give him crap when he woke up.

Percy uncapped Riptide and sat leaning on some hardwood tree he didn't know the name of as the firelight shone on Riptide's blade and kept unfriendly creatures away from them.

Annabeth woke up with a jolt as the Argo lurched forward.

And right in time because she was thrown off her bed and she landed on her hands. She groaned as her injured shoulder took her body weight. She rolled on the floor, breathing hard.

Last night, she hadn't admitted how badly she had been injured. She had to be brave in front of the others. They had been looking up to her ever since she and Percy had come back from Tartarus. Now with Percy and Jason gone, they had needed her even more.

It angered Annabeth that the guys had been so pigheaded as to leave the ship without discussing things with all seven of them. They hadn't even thought of a plan and now they were separated. She had told Leo off for letting them go and now she felt a little guilty for scaring him.

Just then there was a knock on her door.

"Come in", she said gritting her teeth but a gasp came out.

The door swung open and Piper let herself in. She had taken an injury to the side of her head but she looked fine now.

"Damn", Piper cursed and kneeled beside Annabeth, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine", Annabeth replied stiffly, "But why in the name of Hades' underpants did he stop the ship again?!"

Okay, so maybe she didn't feel that bad for Leo.

She got up and sat, leaning on her bed, breathing heavily.

"We've hit some kind of a wall, or barrier", Piper explained nervously, "Currently, we're suspended in midair"

Annabeth cursed in ancient Greek and got up and flexed her hurt shoulder and winced. It was still sore and the last fall had done nothing in her favour.

"You're okay, right?", Piper asked nervously and Annabeth nodded.

She bundled her hair and tied it back tightly. If Percy were here, he would tease her and pull the band out of her hair and refuse to give it back. Ask for kisses in return for it.

She growled at herself and Piper seemed to jump.

She sighed and walked out as Piper followed her.

Leo, Frank and Hazel were standing at the railing on the dock peering at something.

"There are giant white birds in the sky", Leo informed them.

Annabeth glanced towards where they were all looking at and saw deformed birds which were definitely very far away.

"They're not giant birds", Hazel confirmed, playfully slapping Leo on the arm.

"I'll go check it out", Frank told them and looked at Annabeth for permission.

A roman praetor was asking for her permission to do something.

It was dangerous to send Frank alone but the threat had to be checked out. If it was a threat at all, but in demigodland, 98% times it was a threat.

She nodded slightly and Hazel asked Frank, "Are you sure you should? Are you strong enough?"

Frank smiled wanly and suddenly he was gone.

A bald eagle was perched on the railing looking at them sternly with his beady eyes. With a slight nod of its head, it flew away towards the white bird like things.

It was a long time before something happened.

The things were not, in fact birds.

They were pegasi.

There were five of them and Frank flew with them.

Annabeth, Piper and Hazel had their arms drawn, ready to attack. Pegasi weren't evil but only gods knew if they were fine on this side of the world.

The five magnificent animals lightly landed on the dock. Their grace must've affected Frank too because he landed on the dock as lithely as a cat.

One of the pagasi were definitely larger. And the most beautiful. It was the whitest thing Annabeth had ever seen. It was so beautiful that it seemed to emit its own light. It's mane was braided and its tail swished around smoothly. It's eyes were old and wise like Chiron's. It seemed to be the head of the heard.

On further inspection, Annabeth noticed that even though all the other four were white too, they were tinged with various colours. One of them was slightly pink, as if somebody very pale was blushing slightly. One of them was slightly blue and Annabeth was sure it could vanish among clouds on a clear blue sky. One of them was tinged with yellow, almost the colour of the sun's rays. One was slightly grey, as if it's coat was fashioned from the clouds on a rainy day.

"_I'm Pegasus_", a voice boomed inside her head. The voice was rich and ancient, full of power.

The largest pegasus raised his head.

Hazel and Piper gasped, but Annabeth had seen weirder stuff.

"_The_ Pegasus?", Piper asked, "The original son of Medusa?"

"_The one and only_", Pegasus replied, bowing his head slightly.

Annabeth regarded Pegasus with respect and said, "To what do we owe this unexpected pleasure?"

The other pagasi neighed but Pegasus himself stomped his foot and the others shut up.

"_You now enter the area of airspace protected by my magic_", Pegaus said again, inside their heads, "_It cannot be entered through air without me enchanting this ship to pass_"

Annabeth looked down to the ground. They had been flying over land since the whole incident with gryphons near Preveza, so as to reach Pyrgos faster.

Annabeth had picked a low key city so they didn't meet any of Gaia's minions. Pyrgos was a random city in Greece, nobody should have any cause to suspect anything.

"So, if you will, Lord", Annabeth said politely, "We must be on our way to meet with our friends"

"_Oh, yes, Perseus Jackson_", Pegasus said, "_Son of Poseidon. I didn't know Athena was too fond of Poseidon_"

He sounded slightly mocking and Annabeth realized Pegasus' mother was Medusa and his father, Poseidon. His mother had been cursed by Athena herself for sneaking around with Poseidon in her temple.

"She isn't", Annabeth replied courteously, but stiffly, "But I'm not my mother"

He neighed, which was probably a laugh, "_Wonder if Athena is too happy about that_"

Annabeth glared at Pegasus who replied, "_Hey, no need to get angry, I'll enchant this ship and be done with it_"

"Uh, it won't cause any harm to my ship, right?", Leo asked uncertainly, glancing at the floorboards where Pegasus stood. His hooves seemed to emit smoke.

The smoke started covering more area. It spread around the dock, around them and even seeped through the floorboards.

There was a sudden flash of light, so strong that Annabeth had to squeeze her eyes shut and cover them with her hands and still her eyelids appeared bright orange from the inside.

When the light had dimmed and she dared to open her eyes, she couldn't see any visible difference to the ship.

"_If I may, I will take your leave now and leave my children to guide you through as safe passage as long as they can_", Pegasus boomed inside their head and without waiting for a reply took off, his great wings making such strong motions in the air that Annabeth had to struggle to keep her balance.

The other pegasi regarded them with narrowed eyes and took off too, taking the front, back, left and right sides each as the Argo started moving again.

"Oh. Okay", Frank said slowly, "That was quite weird"

"At least we're moving again. Also my ship seems fine", Leo shrugged and bounded to the control room.

"I'll take up the guard", Frank said to no one in particular and went towards the back of the ship and Hazel left with him.

Only Piper and Annabeth stood on the dock now, staring at the land they passed below. They weren't flying too high, even though Annabeth had wanted to fly higher, so as to reach Pyrgos as soon as possible. The land below was clearly visible as Leo had been looking for a place to land and fix the celestial bronze in the needed places.

"I need to tell you something", Piper told Annabeth in a low voice.

"I'm hoping it's something good", Annabeth said even though her instincts screamed that this was something really bad.

"I looked at Katoptris", Piper started and all Annabeth's hoped for something good blew away with the strong gusts of winds that blew around them.

"I saw the battleground", Piper continued as Annabeth's blood went cold, "And Frank burst into flames"


	13. Chapter 13

_**I couldn't wait to write this chapter and now, here it is. Shout out to all the readers who make my writing worth it. **_

PERCY:

It was a few hours after dawn, when Nico woke up.

Jason was still asleep in the awkward position he had fallen to the ground in, snoring softly.

Percy had been singing to himself when he saw Nico sit up gingerly. He stopped abruptly and hesitated to go help him.

In the end he pulled Nico up and straightened him. Nico groaned and felt his left abdomen which had only a scar now.

"Uh, can you pass me my satchel?", he asked Percy, dusting his jacket. He was wrapped up in the old Aviator's jacket, shirtless. The jacket that had been too big for him earlier but now he was slowly filling into it.

Percy picked the satchel up and handed it to Nico who pulled out a black Guns N Roses tshirt and slipped into it. He sat down and winced slightly.

"You going to wake Blondie up?", Nico asked gesturing towards Jason.

"Yeah", Percy said but he made no effort to move.

"Nico, about the kiss-", Percy started but Nico cut him short.

"Percy", Nico said it so pleadingly that Percy couldn't help but want to hear what he wanted to say, "It was a rash act. I was scared. I thought I was going to die and did something impulsive. I hate that I troubled you with it while you had more pressing problems, like saving the world."

Percy looked at Nico. He was fourteen years old but he'd aged beyond his years over the time he'd known him. What had happened when he thought he was going to die, Percy thought, was the childish part of him. Or so he hoped.

Nico looked over at him apologetically.

"Come here", Percy asked, spreading his arms.

"Uh, sure, let me sprout a pair of wings", Nico said sarcastically, rubbing his left side.

Percy grinned and crawled to Nico and hugged the younger boy who sat stiffly, a complaint stuck in his throat.

"Now- wake him- up", said Nico as Percy squeezed the air out of him.

Percy got up and clicked his fingers. A blob of sea water came floating out of the sea and hung over Jason's head. He waved his hand and the water fell on Jason, splashing him into consciousness.

Jason woke up, waving his gladiator clumsily, trying to zero in on a threat.

"Yeah, you would've killed them all", Percy replied rolling his eyes.

Soon, they had packed the little belongings they had and had already started making way towards the town when the Sun rose over their heads.

They were finding the city of Preveza so they could take a train to the closest place to Pyrgos they could.

Percy led the way, talking to tree nymphs occasionally to find the right path. Nico and Jason followed him, lagging a little.

"So what did you guys do, before he woke me up?", Percy heard Jason ask Nico. He could almost hear the smirk in his voice.

"Shh, he'll hear you", Nico hissed but not low enough.

Percy could still clearly hear both of them. He rolled his eyes.

Jason laughed softly, "That guy is half deaf, okay? And even if he does hear us, he won't understand anything. His processor is so damn slow, we would destroy Gaia and be on our way back home before he understands"

Nico laughed and stifled it midway.

Percy almost turned around and smacked the son of Jupiter upside the head.

But that would mean them knowing that he had been eavesdropping and they'll be more careful next time and Percy wouldn't know what would be going on with them.

Also, Nico would get embarrassed.

"Well, nothing. I just explained some stuff and it's all okay", Nico replied casually.

Percy smiled.

"...And?", Jason pushed.

"He hugged me", Nico almost squeaked and Percy almost laughed.

Was this how teenagers his age dealt with small crushes and stuff? Percy had never really done stuff like that. But he had little experiences of his own with these kinds of drama. Rachel, Luke, Calypso, Reyna. Percy wondered if one day he would look back and laugh about the fact that Nico was also in the list of people who came between Percy and Annabeth.

Jason laughed again and Percy realized he had never seen Jason this carefree. He wondered if anybody ever had. He had been a roman praetor, son of Zeus. He had to be disciplined. Right now, he was just a regular sixteen year old guy teasing his friend.

Then he wondered when Nico and Jason had become friends.

He felt a little disturbed at that thought. Percy had spent years trying to make the son of Hades comfortable. It had only take a few weeks for Jason to befriend him.

"Okay, watch this", Jason told Nico and before Percy could help himself, he turned to look at whatever Jason was showing Nico.

That had probably been a good thing because just then Percy walked into something solid and fell right back on the mossy floor. If he would've been facing the way he was walking, he would've ended up with a flat face.

But when he turned to see, apparently he had walked into not so thin air. There was nothing he could've banged into.

Nico snorted and then stopped, "Uh, Percy?"

Jason waved his hand. "He's fine. Get up, fishface. That was for giving me an uncalled for salt bath this morning", he pulled Percy to his feet while he rubbed the side of his head. Jason had created a hard vertical column of air.

"Well, at least you don't smell anymore", Percy sniffed, exaggeratedly.

"Nothing like a little embarrassment to bring people together", Nico said dramatically.

"You'd think embarrassing Kronos twice by destroying him would bring our parents together", Percy pointed out.

"Come on, Ladies", Jason replied, shoving them ahead. "We've got a train to catch"

"Why can't we take a train?", Jason grumbled.

"Because we've got the Ambracian Gulf to cross", Percy pointed out happily. The sea lifted his spirits always.

"Then we hire a car at Vonitsa and the take a train from Amfilochia and then again change trains at Fyteies and then at Angelokastro-", Nico went on saying the names of the Greek town in a funny accent but Percy interrupted.

"Can't we just ask Annabeth to meet us somewhere closer?", he half whined. He was missing her more by each minute.

"Yeah, Jackson, I miss Piper too", Jason replied, as if reading his mind, "But we've got to do what we've got to do."

Percy hated how casual Jason was with his relationship with Piper. He could barely breathe without Annabeth. She had been part of every big adventure he ever had. They had been through Tartarus together. Maybe Reyna was right. Maybe he couldn't find his way out of a paper bag without Annabeth.

Percy looked at the little boat they had hired and in which they were currently making their way through the Ambracian Bay. It was a lot like the boat Hazel, Frank and he had taken on their quest. This boat was called _The Annie_.

The bay was narrow and by the speed Percy was moving them in, it wouldn't take them more than a couple of hours to land on shore. Plan was to shadow travel (Jason and Percy were totally against it but Nico insisted and it was hard to not let Nico get his way) to Vonitsa and then hire a car and drive till sundown.(After Nico had assured than that he could conceal them in shadows from Gaia so they could safely travel by ground. They had little choice anyway)

Nobody said anything throughout the boat ride. The silence was eerie after all the joking in the morning. Jason was probably feeling awkward at taking the sea route. He'd rather fly over the bay like Superman, he'd said himself. Percy was finding it increasingly difficult to understand the new Jason.

And Nico seemed very fascinated by the sea. He stared into it like he couldn't quite grasp the concept of the ocean.

Percy got them to the other side of the bay in less than four hours. He thought he deserved some appreciation for that but as soon as they touched the ground, Jason and Nico whined about getting food. That just made Percy crankier.

They walked into the first restaurant they saw, which was coincidentally, or not, a McDonald's. What a McDonald's was doing here, Percy had no idea.

Nico's eyes twinkled at catching sight of the McDonald's. He walked briskly to the door and looked back at them, gesturing them to follow. Jason shrugged and followed him inside with Percy just a few steps behind.

The restaurant was empty. Except for two of the staff members, one girl and one guy. The girl smiled at them and motioned the guy to take their order.

The guy turned to smile at them, and for a second he looked like Tyson. With one eye.

Percy froze. "Tyson?", he asked uncertainly.

Nico and Jason gave him an odd look, as if he should've been wearing an orange straightjacket.

"Percy, are you okay?", Jason asked him.

"Are you a Cyclops?", Percy asked the guy at the counter.

Nico stepped on Percy's foot but the boy hardly weighed anything so he just ignored him.

The guy at the counter looked at him as if he didn't understand.

"_I don't know what you mean, sir. My name is Abraxus. I don't understand what you're saying. If you want I can call my partner, Aurora_", he said in Greek.

Nico replied calmly in Greek, "_No, it's okay, we're fluent in Greek. My friend just though you looked like someone he knew_"

Jason looked from Percy to Nico to Abraxus and to Percy again. "You know my Greek isn't that great", he complained.

After ten minutes, they were seated on a table in one of the corners, overlooking the ocean, hogging on burgers. Nico had a happy meal and the sight stirred something in Percy. Gosh, this kid loves his happy meals, he thought smiling.

Jason had finished his meal but Percy had only started his fourth burger. "I'm going to go clean up and change", he told them.

"You don't have clothes", Percy reminded him, his mouth full of food.

"I'm going to wash them. And then dry them.", Jason told him but when Percy looked at him uncomprehending, he added, "Perks of being the son of Jupiter", and walked off towards the washrooms.

"I prefer when he's being the golden boy and stuff", Percy muttered but Nico was too busy with his happy meal. He took out the toy which was some cartoon character in a blue hoodie and brown skin tight pants. The figurine's hair was white but it was clear it was a young boy. He had a brown staff in his hand. Nico slipped the toy in his pocket.

Percy finished his burger and got up. "We should go freshen up too", he told Nico.

Nico turned pink. "Uh, you go change and after you both are back I'll go", he said hurriedly.

Percy shrugged and went into the washroom. Jason stood shirtless, drying his purple tshirt with hot air that was blasting from his palm. He turned as Percy entered.

Percy washed his face and took his shirt off and washed it too. But all this while, something was nagging at his brain. Something he should've remembered. About seven years of this demigod crap and he still forgot important stuff. He felt like he was forgetting vital information. He handed his shirt to Jason to dry off.

Just then a big crash was heard and then a rumble that shook the ground. They rushed outside the washroom to the restaurant.

Table and chairs were fallen, broken.

Sunlight streamed from the dealing but that was strange because there was roof. Or there had been a roof.

In the midst of the rubble, stood Nico clutching his sword, face to faces with a hydra.

_**I'm hoping somebody realized that it was a Jack Frost figurine Nico got. Just a random Rise Of The Guardians reference :D**_

_**Thank you for reading! I'll update ASAP.**_


	14. Chapter 14

_**I'm sorry for the delay. No, this isn't really one of my best works, I'll admit. But I hope it'll be better next time.**_

Chapter 14:

NICO:

He had been calmly munching on French fries when that hydra burst through the door.

Or through the wall on which the door had been.

The hydra was easily nine feet tall, with nine reptilian head. Each head had jagged shark-like teeth. And horrible breath, Nico unfortunately found out.

It's belly and feet were scaly and green. Also, very slimy. His tail was long and muscular. It probably picked up demigods and threw them across football fields.

As lithe as a cat, Nico had sprung to his feet and unsheathed his sword.

But the ugly thing seemed to get angrier to see the sword and decided to trample the furniture and spit acid.

Nico rolled under a table and tried to jab at the monster's belly, but the hydra shifted just then, one of his nine heads turned and turned the chair right next to Nico into a pool of goo.

Just then Percy and Jason stumbled out of the washroom, only the latter in a shirt. Nico tried not to notice Percy's very muscularly attractive chest and abdomen.

Percy's riptide and Jason's gladiator were out in a second.

"Don't cut its heads off!", Jason shouted as he dodged a snap from one of the heads.

The three of them fought like one entity.

Jason was their sense of hearing, he could make out every move as of the air particles itself were warning him about each movement.

Percy was their arms. He slashed and jabbed and rolled and cut like every monster's nightmare. Nico and Jason's moves were coordinated with his like they were a part of something greater than themselves.

Nico was their eyes, anticipating every move, calculating each attack.

It was as if their consciousness was one. Whatever they did, they did as single hydra-destroying-machine. Each of them knew the other's next move. It was like they had enormous power at their disposal and had fought at each other's side numerous times before. They weren't even getting tired.

It wasn't like the last time when Nico had been hurt. This time they were more open, more frank towards each other and had unlocked the expanse of power that resided within each of them. Which, when combined, could do anything.

Their coordination was everything. Percy distracted the hydra by dancing around and jabbing at it, evey chance he got while Jason slashed around at his back. Nico butted the hydra's head every time it was about to spit poison, distracting it by cutting at his legs.

"I hate hydras", Percy complained, "Especially big ones like this"

"Fire, do we have fire?", Nico asked, slashing at the hydra's thick leg.

"Actually we do.", Jason told them as he fumbled with his hand in his jacket's pocket, "Leo gave me these weird tiny blob like things of Greek fi-"

Just then the hydra flicked its tail and a table went flying and hit Jason's head and he crumpled to the floor like paper.

"Yeah, that's more like Jason", Percy pointed out, "Getting knocked out straight on his butt"

Then the fighting became harder. They had lost their sense of hearing. Even though Nico could calculate and decide what the next move of the monster was going to be, he wouldn't know for sure. And anticipating attacks from behind was impossible with Jason down.

Nico skidded to Jason's side while Percy fended them from the hydra, muttering, "Should've know...McDonald's opens up nowhere...suddenly as soon as their hungry...how stupid, gods..."

Nico pulled out a Ziploc bag of tiny green marbles. A miniscule flame burnt at the centre.

"How do we use these?", he asked helplessly.

Percy growled, grabbing two of the tiny blobs, and jumped.

And landed on the hydra's back.

He seemed to struggle to find a steady foothold on the monster's slimy back.

Nico looked at him, utterly confounded.

"What do you think you're doing?", Nico asked.

"Can't", Percy said as the hydra tried to shake Percy off it's back, "Explain."

Nico didn't need another word. He slashed at the hydra heads so they wouldn't bite Percy like a burger, dislocating a few jaws and cutting off the forked tongue from a couple of heads.

Percy beheaded one of the necks and dropped the green blob on the stump which had already started to grow again.

At that moment, Percy jumped off the hydra's back and smashed at the blob with Riptide, midair.

Which was either something very heroic or something very very stupid.

The smash made the blob burst into a flame of Greek fire and the neck crumbled to dust.

Percy fell to the floor on a broken chair and groaned.

"I could do with a ballistae right about now", he groaned.

Nico grabbed the packet of the green blobs and slashed off one of the hydra heads that had been snarling at him.

He dropped the blob and smashed it with the tip of his sword and skidded between the hydra's legs to where Percy was staggering to his feet.

Nico sprang to his feet and supported Percy.

They looked at each other and nodded.

Nico handed Percy three green blobs and a mutual look of consent passed.

They each took two different sides and cut and burnt the heads of the hydra till only the middle immortal head remained.

Around them the debris burnt and the horrid smoke of burning monster was suffocating.

The immortal head bared it's fangs and spat at them. Percy and Nico jumped in opposite directions to avoid getting turned into a poisonous puddle.

Percy charged at the hydra and cut off the last head with one swift stroke and it crumpled to monster dust.

They stood there for a while, without saying anything, not even looking at each other.

Then Jason stirred and they realized he was still there.

"Do you think he needs some nectar?", Nico asked Percy.

"Naah", Percy replied casually. "I'm sure he's used to getting knocked out"

Jason mumbled something but it was incoherent.

They pulled him into a sitting position.

He rubbed the side of his head and stood up gingerly. "I'm fine I think"

Percy rolled his eyes and Nico supported Jason.

There was a little whimpering sound and Percy pulled Riptide out.

The sound was coming from behind the counter.

They peeked over and saw Abraxas, the McDonald's employee, down on the floor with his palms over his ears.

His face flickered and instead of his two eyes, there was one big calf brown eye in the middle of his forehead.

"Aha!", Percy exclaimed, "I knew you were a Cyclops."

Abraxas whimpered again and whispered, "Please don't kill me. I don't know what you're talking about"

They stared at the Cyclops. He was very small in size, for a Cyclops. He was almost tiny. More humanlike.

"Could it be that he doesn't know he's a Cyclops?", Nico asked the other two boys in a low voice.

"But how-", Jason started but Percy cut him off.

"Not all Cyclops get claimed by Poseidon. Maybe nobody ever told him", he said thoughtfully.

Maybe Percy's vision was getting clouded because of his half brother Tyson who looked a lot like Abraxas, now that he only had one eye, but Nico didn't bring that up.

"_Abraxas_", Percy asked calmly, "_Where are your parents_?"

Abraxas looked at them with a very scared expression. Nico didn't blame him.

"_I don't have parents_", he whispered. "_I'm an orphan. I was adopted by two very nice people_"

Yes. They were in the middle nowhere discussing a Cyclops' background.

Nico wanted to run as fast as he could, maybe shadow travel somewhere before more monsters come at them. Three powerful demigods of the eldest three. They had to be sending a out a signal that said, "HEY. HERE WE ARE. PLEASE COME EAT US. WE'RE REALLY TASTY AND STUFF" even though Nico had protected them with as much dark magic as he could conjure.

But here Percy was, taking care of his half-brother.

Nico would've liked nothing better than to drag Percy's ass off to Pyrgos but he couldn't. Doing things like this was just what made Percy, Percy. And Nico appreciated that.

Putting it lightly, that is.

The other girl, Aurora was nowhere to be found. Percy suggested that Gaia had probably offered the hydras a more varied fast food chains to link too and that's why the McDonald's had appeared as soon as they got off their boat, starving.

Somehow thought had been a little funny. Gaia offering McDonald's to hydras, Nico knew not why. He was probably going crazy, which he probably already was.

After what seemed like an hour and a half, (Nico was actually good at this kinda stuff, calculations and plotting), they stood on the beach while Abraxas waved at them and walked in to the ocean.

"Dad", Percy said to the ocean with a very determined look, "Take him to your forges, please."

Nico detected a hint of, I'm saving the world, the least you could do is this, in Percy's voice.

Jason had become quiet since getting knocked out and looked abashed.

Before leaving, Abraxas had thanked them and given them his car keys. He had also had packed a lot of food and water and coke for their journey. Percy seemed very pleased with all that coke.

Now they wouldn't have to stop too much on their journey and attract monsters.

Another thing Abraxas gave them was a funny looking card. He said it would help at most food and fuel shops. Nico and Jason had no idea how to use it but apparently Percy did.

As the Cyclops vanished into the ocean, without wasting any time, they jumped into the old, blue hunchback car (it shudderedso much Nico thought it would break down in the middle of nowhere) Abraxas had left them and drove away, with Percy on the wheel.

Jason rode shotgun. Nico sat at the back fiddling with his iPod.

Jason had previously tried to bust the iPod with his gladiator when they had woken up this morning but Nico had managed to convince him not to since the gadget was monster proof. Perks of being a son of Hades.

Nico was calmly listening to Bullet For My Valentine (As calmly as one could) when his earphones flew out along with his iPod and landed on Jason's lap.

"Hey!", Nico exclaimed in protest.

"Don't be antisocial", Jason scolded, almost. "We're all here"

Nico straightened up in mock interest, "Let's gossip, Grace."

Percy laughed, "Let's play a game"

Nico rolled his eyes. These guys would be the death of him.

"I spy with my metaphoric eye", Jason said proudly.

"I spy with my metaphoric eye", he continued, "Something huge"

Percy grinned wickedly and Nico blushed while Jason groaned at Percy's expression.

"Is it your ego, Grace?", Nico asked in an attempt to divert attention from Percy's smirk.

Percy laughed at that and Jason rolled his eyes.

"He does have a pretty big ego considering that he gets knocked out during each fight", Percy added.

"Guys", Jason said with as much seriousness as he could muster up, "I was talking about the great battle on mount Olympus."

"Not a big deal", Percy said waving his left hand.

"Dude keep your hands on the wheel please", Jason warned.

"I'm sure everyone's great grandmother tries to kill them and stuff", Nico pointed out.

"Dude, I can drive really well", Percy insisted.

"Ever wonder how we got stuck in this family?", Jason asked.

"I'm hungry", Percy interjected.

"When did you even get a driver's license?", Nico asked Percy.

"All the time. I never did anything so bad as to be related to Kronos and Gaia", Percy added.

"Where did we keep the food", Jason asked.

"In New York, when I was sixteen, after defeating Kronos", Percy replied.

"DUDE", Nico exclaimed a bit too strongly, "For three people who fought together really well a few hours ago, we sure have a lot of problems coordinating our conversations"

"We fought really well till Jason got knocked on his ass", Percy added.

"Dude, let that go", Jason complained.

Nico buried his face in his hands.

"I'm going to sleep", he announced.

He lay down on the backseat but he hardly fitted.

He curled up, pulling his knees to his chest, just like he had in the bronze jar in which Gaia had captured him.

It probably was a mistake because it triggered off one of his worst nightmares.

He was walking through a dark reddish land, a forest of tall grass on his left and a river of flame on his right.

He was holding his dark sword in his right hand as his left bicep bled through the piece of tshirt he had tied over the wound.

He dragged his right leg behind him. It had been bit by an enormous wolf-like creature he had never heard about or ever seen before.

That is, before he landed in Tartarus. But since landing here, the wolf-like thing had become his best friend, following him since he arrived and attacking him every opportunity it got.

Nico had defeated it but he doubted he would make far with all his injuries. He dug out the last piece of ambrosia he had in his pocket which was squished in an odd shape.

He had been saving it up for when the pain and the injuries would become unbearable, drinking from the Phlegothon to keep himself going, but the time was here now.

Nico swallowed the ambrosia whole. It tasted metallic.

The ambrosia seemed to scream as it entered his body. It couldn't decide what to heal first. His back had been slashed open by talons of some creatures he didn't remember, his leg had been bitten, his arm had almost been cut off, his sternum still bled from a wound he had acquired days ago. The ambrosia burnt like a bright flame inside him but diminishing quickly due to so many wounds.

A sob built up in Nico's chest but it came out as a dry rasping sound. His hair was matted on his scalp. He probably fitted right with all these monstrous creatures in Tartarus.

He had been considered killing himself off right here, with his very faithful sword. End the torture.

But he wouldn't disappoint his father. Or Percy. Or Hazel. He could do this.

But for how much longer?

Nico thought of his mother and Bianca, unable to stop himself. He had never been this alone all his life. Nobody was there, nothing was there. It was him and him alone in the world of endless torture.

Too late. While he was thinking about all this, a hideous grey dragon had slipped from the dark swaying forest that lay on Nico's left.

Its scale were slimy and its wings were triple its size, like translucent gift wrapping paper over bones. It's tail flicked from side to side like a cat getting ready to pounce. It's thick leather mouth pulled back in a snarl, baring crooked, disgustingly dirty teeth.

The dragon roared and let out a blazing inferno as Nico screamed so loud that it echoed throughout Tartarus.

He woke up screaming, cold with sweat.

Jason was asleep in the passenger's seat and Percy peeking at him from the driver's seat, his eyes full of horror.

Nico sat up quickly, almost falling.

"Hey", Percy said softly, holding Nico's arm.

His arm burnt but this time it wasn't from pain.

"It's okay", Percy said softly, "You're not alone anymore. You're here. With us. We're here. Don't forget that"

Nico wanted to jerk his arm away and snarl at Percy and pretend to sleep.

But he didn't because that's what he would've done a few years ago. He wasn't that person anymore.

"I didn't wake Jason up?", he asked in an attempt to change the topic.

"No", Percy replied. Then he blushed. "Actually I started singing like Britney Spears so he blocked his ears with some air plug thing and went to sleep"

Nico smiled, but it was strained.

"You go to sleep", Percy told him, "If you can. Then I'll wake you up for the next watch. Promise"

Nico nodded and looked at Percy.

His eyes twinkled and his lips were slightly parted. He was leaning towards Nico, talking softly.

A part of him wanted to lean in and kiss him.

He growled at himself but it came out loud.

Percy looked startled, like a baby seal.

Embarrassed, Nico slowly went to a dreamless sleep, wondering if he had imagined a soft sea breeze blowing over his head while he slept.


	15. Chapter 15

_**Sorry, this one is a little small. But I've already written the next chapter. I'll publish it as soon as possible.**_

_**Also, I was wondering if I should do a Leo POV at the end, during the war. I know it's probably not fair to the other characters but I think, well, Leo deserves it. I don't know. What do you think?**_

ANNABETH:

Annabeth paced the deck with her eyes closed.

She wished the sea water would spray on the deck, and on Annabeth. She found it comforting. Reminded her of Percy.

But of course there was no sea water. They were travelling by air, over cities. The sea wasn't that close. Just like Percy.

She and Piper were on guard duty.

Piper was in the control room, keeping track of everything like Leo had taught her to.

Annabeth guessed it was because Piper wanted to stay away from her.

Today morning when Piper had told her about her vision about Frank spontaneously combusting, Annabeth had blinked and walked away, without saying anything at all.

And she blamed Luke for it all.

The night before Luke had been in her dreams, yet again. His plan was slowly unravelling to her. She was beginning to understand what Luke was suggesting.

It was impossible, she knew. She could never do that. There was too much to lose. Why would she risk everything she had for something Luke said?

But Luke had seemed confident. As if he knew she would agree sooner or later.

She wondered what it was that he knew and she didn't.

Her stomach churned and it wasn't air sickness.

Luke had even told her a bit of what would happen when they reached Athens. In bits and pieces of course but he had. He was helping them win a second war. Was she supposed to make a personal sacrifice for him as a token of thanks?

Surely not. It was too much.

But then again, it was Luke.

He had taken her off to show Thalia again. She seemed better but not that good. Artemis was hardly there with the hunters. Zeus still probably kept her away as much as possible. So naturally all responsibility fell to Thalia, who seemed to crumble under the weight. She tried to be brave for the other hunters and Annabeth could see herself in Thalia.

Annabeth could see the pain in Luke's eyes too. He had loved Thalia and the only reason Thalia had joined the hunters was because Luke had betrayed her. And also because of Zoe Nightshade.

Now Thalia had found a new family but was virtually detached from the rest of the world.

The image of Thalia seemed to drain his energy even though he barely existed anymore.

So Luke changed the topic and started about the war against Gaia.

He told her what the world would fall to. But it still was a shock when Annabeth was told Frank would be at the heart of an inferno.

Frank Zhang.

The boy she had taught about Chinese Handcuffs was now a totally different guy. Tall, tough, hard and strong. Also a praetor. And alot more confident. His father's blessing seemed to be more visible in him.

Before they had reached Rome, Frank had told Annabeth about another problem he had. She had begun to suspect what it was but till Piper told her about her vision, she hadn't been sure.

She was sure she had read about a great hero who could do anything but to all his vast power, there was a catch. His life was dependent on a piece of wood.

Now deep in her gut, she knew something would go horribly wrong with Frank in the battle.

But would it be better or for the worse, to the war?, asked the analytical side of her brain.

Shut up, he's your friend. Friend burning is bad, the mortal part of her brain replied.

BUT LUKE, another part of her brain screamed.

Annabeth really hated when her brain split into various parts.

She hated it even more when the parts contradicted each other.

Perks of being a daughter of Athena, she guessed.

Suddenly, she was angry. Her mother hadn't even thanked her for saving the Athena Parthenos. She hadn't heard from her mother after coming back from Tartarus. What kind of ungrateful woman was Athena?

She promised herself that she would have a word with her mother next time she saw her. It was all her fault that Percy and Annabeth had fallen into Tartarus.

Athena had broken something deep inside them and she hated her mom for it. And she always would.

She would make Athena pay for it...once the war was over.

On the contrary, her Yankees cap had started working again. She could become invisible again.

She sighed and decided to go talk to Piper. She didn't deserve this moody treatment. Piper had been very helpful lately and Annabeth appreciated her company since Hazel was mostly sick and had to remain in her cabin.

Also, Piper understood how it felt to lose your boyfriend.

She went into the control room and plopped into one of the chairs.

"I'm sorry if I just jumped the news on to you", Piper said apologetically.

"No, I understand how it is to know things that will probably scare everybody else. You did right in telling me", Annabeth replied, her own form of apology.

She contemplated telling Piper about Luke and her dreams.

Tell her, she's your friend, a part of her urged.

NO! This is distressing news, you can't burden others with it!, another part scolded.

Well, you have to tell somebody, the first part replied.

No, it's nobody's business. It's yours. Nobody has to know, another part piped in.

She almost growled out loud again.

Instead she asked Piper if she would come with her while she Iris messaged Reyna about how things were back in Camp Halfblood and what the Romans were doing.

She thought Piper was going to decline but then she sighed and nodded.

She wanted rush back to Long Island and defend her camp against whatever Gaia might send against them but she knew if they didn't continue on this journey there would be nothing anymore. Everything she loved would be gone.

They got up and walked below deck, to Annabeth's room which looked quite bare without Dedalus's laptop. Her head hurt over all the data that had been lost. But she had been glad to see the scrolls and the Archimedes Sphere Leo had found. Those were the next most valuable thing Annabeth had had the pleasure of seeing.

But she couldn't go ask Leo for them because they were Leo's, unlike Dedalus' laptop which had been hers and hers only. She would've been very reluctant to give Leo her laptop, she couldn't possibly ask for the scrolls. They belonged to a son of Hephaestus. She could only hope Leo would be kind enough to let her see some of the stuff. He was lately very obsessed with the sphere and Annabeth though she had seen a flash of a crystal in his hands too. It was hard to say because his crafty hands worked at the speed of sound.

"Shouldn't we wake Leo up since we left the engine room?", Piper asked Annabeth, "We should get him to man the ship"

"Should we wake him up, though?", Annabeth asked, "He needs rest too"

"I think the ship means more to him than sleep", Piper answered earnestly.

Annabeth knocked on Leo's door and waited while a groan sounded from inside.

A couple of minutes later, Leo opened the door and looked at Annabeth groggily.

"Time to get up already?", he mumbled sleepily.

Yes, Annabeth hated pulling people out of their sleeps since she herself didn't get sleep often.

"Gotta check on Reyna and Camp Halfblood", she told him, and he must've understood because his eye lids opened all the way up and his face hardened. He nodded.

Annabeth wondered if he was still beating himself up over New Rome.

She turned and joined Piper who had been looking at sketches of buildings and streets Annabeth had drawn casually. She hoped she'd get to use them someday.

"They're beautiful", Piper murmured examining one. "You have so much going on for you"

Annabeth smiled grudgingly. You have no idea.

Just then the ship lurched. Piper unsheathed Katoptris in a second and Annabeth groaned. This couldn't be happening again.

They rushed on to the deck to find Leo in utter chaos. He was screaming at Buford the table and at Festus. He clicked gears in his Archimedes Sphere and pressed various buttons and pulled different levers.

"Leo, what's going on?", Piper asked as the ship tilted to the left side. And they almost flew over board.

"Crazy plants", Leo screamed but that made no sense at all.

Until she looked down to see that they had been moving over a forest.

Until she saw that the top of the trees were growing and that the bottom of their ship was covered in the creepers. The plants creeped up and grew over the vents of the ship, hooked themselves on the shelves for the oars and tried to seep through the floorboard.

Until she saw that only two of the pegasi remained and the remaining ones struggling to fight off the demonic plants.

Until a plant made a grab for her and plucked her off the ship.


	16. Chapter 16

_**Here's some more Annabeth! Since I haven't been writing her POV for sometime.**_

_**And about Percabath and Percico, I'm still not sure. GOD. This is really difficult.**_

_**Thank you for all the review and favourites!**_

Annabeth:

Her vision blurred as the spongy tentacle wrapped around her waist, grabbed and pulled her off the ship.

She must've screamed pretty loud because the tentacle stopped in midair for a while.

That hadn't been the smartest thing she ever did because when the tentacle stopped, it dangled her upside down.

The sudden stop made her dizzy as her blood rushed to her head, and she knew she should've closed her eyes to keep the food down in her stomach but she couldn't bring herself to.

She could see Piper struggling to cut the plant that had wrapped around her leg.

Leo was burning down the creepers that were trying to edge over to the control room.

Frank was nowhere to be seen but Hazel was standing on the deck shouting at two creepers who seemed to be fighting each other.

What in the name of Hades?, Annabeth wondered.

While the plant that held her seemed frozen, Annabeth used the opportunity to wriggle her hand through the tight grip around her waist and pulled out her Drakon-bone sword.

She cut the vine (which seemed to prove more difficult than she had originally thought since the stem of the creeper was very spongy and hard to cut) that held her and prayed to whichever god that was listening to save her as she fell towards the forest floor.

Somebody must've heard her because when she fell to the forest floor, she bounced back four feet.

The forest floor was as spongy as the crazy plants and for a second Annabeth was afraid the ground would swallow her up.

She heard Gaia laugh. _That I eventually will, demigod. Your end isn't far._

"You can go to Tartarus for all I care, hag", Annabeth snapped as she slowly stood to her feet, careful not to bounce again.

She looked around and almost jumped again.

The trees around her had thick trunks with eyes and mouths. They had six massive branches which were like creepers. Or tentacles.

They were bigger than giant redwood trees with faces.

They seemed to be talking to each other but their mouths and eyes were closed.

Her skin prickled. They had to be sons of Gaia.

She though hard about legends she might have heard but she came up with nothing useful.

Was Gaia creating new horrors now? That was plausible. Trees were in her territory, especially large trees like these whose roots went deep into the earth.

If these trees weren't inhabited by nymphs, Gaia could control them and make them do her dirty work.

She refused to think about the scenario where these trees did belong to nymphs and Gaia had taken the tree away from them.

Her stomach churned at the thought of Percy. What if he was passing through a forest like this and he didn't know?

Annabeth gulped. She strained her ears to catch a drift of what these trees were saying.

"...you better do it", said one tree.

"But that wasn't part of my job, it was his", the second replied.

"no, it was yours all along", a third replied.

"Can't we just all destroy the ship together?", a fourth whined.

"Yeah, mother will love us all equally", the fifth replied.

An angry argument broke about who Mother loved most.

The first tree hushed them all and said, "I guess you're right. But our first threat is the Fire Human. Let's destroy him first"

That was enough for Annabeth.

Usually, Annabeth would've used her brains and talked her way out of a problem. Fighting wasn't her first instinct, thinking was. But this time, the warrior in her took over.

She ran (half bouncing) to the first tree and slashed at his creepers with her bone sword.

Wherever she managed to make a cut, the plant withered but the problem was that it was hard to make a cut. The spongyness made it almost impossible to cut the vines.

The first tree had six thick creepers but Annabeth managed to cut only two.

She fell to the forest floor and bounced again, desperate to make another attempt when the fifth tree grabbed her by the ankles and turned her upside down.

She felt another creeper slither up her back and wrap around get neck.

Her throat burned. She writhed gasped for air but nothing happened. She was choking and her lungs were burning. She felt her voice box being compressed and she knew if the plant twisted even slightly, she would dead instantly.

"Stop!", the fourth tree exclaimed and the fifth tree's grip slackened.

Annabeth gasped and sweet air filled her lungs. She coughed and clutched at her throat trying to shake off the horrible feeling of the plants tentacle around her neck.

"We cannot kill her", the fourth tree told the fifth one. "Mother prefers her blood. She wants this demigod to be sacrificed for her"

"He's right", said the second tree, "We need to capture the her and kill the rest"

Her mind raced to find a way out of this mess.

She felt her waist and found her sword hanging in an awkward angle. So the trees weren't smart enough to take her weapons away. Okay, that was an advantage.

She looked around her in hopes of finding something to her advantage.

She saw nothing but the bouncy forest floor, trees and a bird.

The creepy tress were only six, Annabeth noticed, the sixth one asleep farther away from the rest. She guessed because he wasn't talking and his branches were limp unlike the others. The rest of the forest was full of normal trees, as far as she could see.

She groaned. The bird chirped.

She glanced at the bird and the bird cocked its head.

She didn't dare to hope but she whistled softly, hoping her plan would work.

The bird whistled the same tune she whistled, back at her.

So the bird was Frank.

The bird stared at her with its beady eyes and flew to the sky.

Annabeth's heart sank. Was it not Frank after all?

As she strained against the creeper around her ankles to follow the bird with her gaze, she saw a white shape in the sky, almost camouflaged in the pinkish sky.

The pink Pegasus with Hazel on it.

She had never been so happy to see Hazel, even after they had taken the elevator from the doors of death. At that time Percy had been with her. But this time she only had creepy trees who assaulted demigods.

The Pegasus vanished as soon as it had appeared. Seconds later it strolled softly, twenty feet from where Annabeth hung.

Hazel got off the Pegasus and motioned for Annabeth to come to her.

Annabeth rolled her eyes. Couldn't she see she was tied up?

She decided to try her luck.

"You trees aren't that smart, are you?", she taunted them.

The trees barked and started boasting of their wit all together so that they made no sense at all.

"I mean if you were smart enough, you wouldn't have kept me dangling here while you all discussed how you're going to destroy my ship or what Gaia's plans are. Now I know all your plans", she said throwing in a smirk.

If the trees were actually smart they would just laugh and remind her that she was in no shape to escape and help her friends and since she was going to die, she might as well hear about Gaia.

But they weren't smart. They roared at her.

"That's exactly what we were going to do", the first tree replied.

"Yeah, we were going to tie you up far from where you can't hear us", the third tree piped in.

"No you guys aren't smart. If you were, I would've been tied to that tree, far from you guys but near your sixth brother", she replied, giggling fakely.

The trees erupted in angry retorts.

The fifth tree shouted, "Quiet, brothers. She's not smart enough. If she was, she wouldn't have told us a better plan to imprison her"

Annabeth almost thought they'd find out that something was wrong. It was almost funny how stupid these trees were.

Instead, the fifth tree plopped her in front of the sixth tree and tied a her up with a bow around the sixth trees's trunk with the trees own tentacles.

"Ha!", the fifth tree exclaimed.

"That does look better", the second tree replied.

"Now she'll never get away", cackled the fourth tree.

"Let's destroy the ship!", the third tree cheered.

As soon as they had turned their attention towards the ship, hazel rushed to Annabeth's side and cut off the tentacles and Annabeth grabbed Hazel and rolled away towards the Pegasus.

That too, in time, because the sixth tree roared and grabbed for them with its remaining four tentacles.

They jumped on the pegasus' back and flew, dodging the tentacles, towards their ship.

They were high above the Argo, where the tentacles couldn't reach them but they could clearly see what was going on.

Piper was charmspeaking the tentacles to strangle each other and Leo was burning them up whenever they tried to get too near the control room. Frank had turned into a leopard. Annabeth didn't know why he chose to be a leopard. Except that probably gave him speed and sharp claws to slash through the vines.

But she was sure there was some other animal with a better advantages. If she had his ability...

She forced herself to concentrate.

There were too many of the plants. Once in a while Piper stumbled as one of the creepers caught her leg and her charmspeak faltered. Leo was doing well enough. Frank wasn't doing badly either.

The Pegasus dropped them on the deck and flew off to fight alongside its only remaining brother.

Annabeth had already formulated a plan and told Hazel her job.

Hazel was supposed to confuse the plants by using her powers to bend the mist. She would set the trees against each other. She would ask Frank to cover Annabeth's back while Leo and Piper would defend the ship.

Annabeth grabbed a tentacle and swung herself off it and slid down towards the supposed head of one of the trees. It must've been the first or the sixth tree because it only had four tentacular branches.

As soon as she was close to the point where the branches began, she started cutting with a vigorous speed.

One, two, three, four, she cut all the branches off and they withered and the point where they began became stumps. She could hear the tree whimpering but she felt no sympathy.

Two other tentacles made a grab for her but she jumped at them and swung herself. The branch tried to shake her off but she hoisted herself back on the ship.

"One down, five more to go", she muttered.

She grabbed another tentacle and slid down to it's trunk. She noticed this tree had only two tentacles left. The others were burnt off. Seemed like Leo was good enough.

She quickly cut off two remaining two and hoisted herself back on the ship.

It took about fifteen minutes to finish off the rest. Leo burnt most of them and Frank slashed them. Piper talked. Hazel even had tree four uproot tree three.

At last they sat on the deck checking for wounds. There weren't many but wherever the tentacles had grabbed them, a reddish rash was beginning to sprout.

Only two of their pegasi remained, the pink and the yellow one, and Hazel called them aboard and fed them apples. Piper insisted on doughnuts. "They like it", she said softly, but insistently.

"Do we have everything under control?", she asked everyone.

Leo nodded and went back into the control room, refusing to leave while Hazel tried not to throw up. Piper fed doughnuts to the pegasi. Frank was inspecting the damage to the ship, which wasn't much. Just a few broken boards.

Annabeth went back to her cabin, took a bath and settled herself on her bed.

Then she began to draw, wondering how many would die in the coming war.


	17. Chapter 17

_**I'm sorry, I've not written for a long time. I took a little break. A Christmas/New Year/Sherlock/Game of Thrones break. In short, I got sidetracked.**_

**_But, yeah, here I am. Back again. Also, thank you for 10,000 views. I'm still as surprised about it as I was when I first had 100 views. Thank you! xx_**

**PERCY**:

His arms ached. So did his legs. He had been driving since forever, until Nico or Jason reminded him that it had been hours since he stopped. Then they would go out, stretch their legs, go about their business, buy anything they needed and go back to driving again. Most of their road was isolated but after a couple of miles or so, there would be a few little shops.

He had made himself comfortable in one of Nico's tshirts which had been in his satchel. When he fit snugly in the Led Zeppelin tshirt, only then did he realize that Nico wasn't much shorter than him.

Then again, he wore clothes too big for him so that gave Percy a headache.

He had to keep driving as Nico and Jason couldn't drive.

This sucks, he thought to himself. He was tired.

But he would go on because his friends need him too. Also, he had to get back to Annabeth.

The thought gave him a burst of energy and he accelerated faster and almost shouted aloud.

Jason was asleep at the back seat and Nico was in the passengers seat looking out of the window.

Whenever he looked at him, he felt a tingle deep inside him. He didn't know what that was but it was the same kind of feeling when he had realized he could breathe under water. Except this had more excitement. The tingle made him queasy.

But what was the tingle about?

He just wanted to run away somewhere and curl up with Annabeth. But he couldn't. Because his friends needed him. Because this wasn't just about him and Annabeth anymore. He had a responsibility. He couldn't let Gaia destroy the world.

He wished Jason was awake. He would've kept talking casually whereas Percy had no idea what to say.

"So", he started, "Where'd you learn to fight?"

Nico gave him a look that suggested Percy was nuts.

"Well, I practiced with the ghosts", Nico replied smoothly, "Ancient Greek and Roman warriors"

Percy nodded, "So you must have a lot of experience"

"Yeah, well, once I practiced with Achilles", Nico said casually. "But usually I don't have the strength to fight as well as I should. There's something wrong with me"

"That's because you hardly eat anything", Percy replied, but it came off a bit too harshly.

Nico looked at him with steely eyes and suddenly Percy felt cold.

"Uh, that's not what I meant. I meant you should eat properly. You're a growing kid", Percy rushed, "I mean, you look fine. Even your skin colour isn't as pale as it used to be. It's returning to it's normal shade of that pretty olive tone that..."

Percy wanted to stop talking but he couldn't. He didn't know how the son of Hades would take it. Percy couldn't stop himself from blabbing. He seemed to have no control over his mouth.

Nico turned red, darker than his Italian skin tone. "You look better in that tshirt than I ever did", he muttered but Percy heard him.

"Yeah, all this complimenting is really lovely, like fifth grade students and all but it's making me hungry"

Apparently Jason had heard them too.

"How do you know, you've never been to fifth grade", Percy retorted.

"I'm still hungry , fishface", Jason pointed, "When are we stopping?"

"Ain't any McDonald's left, disgrace?", Percy asked, "Only when we need to be shopping"

Nico winced. "Please tell me that was coincidently rhyming, because that was truly terrible"

"Haha, Jackson", Jason replied sarcastically, "All you could do was a pun with Grace. So unoriginal"

"I think the road trip is kinda killing us", Nico sighed.

"What do you suggest, Ghost King?", Percy asked looking at him.

He thought the son of Hades looked happy.

Nico rolled his eyes.

"Well, I suggest you keep your eyes on the road and not on Nico", Jason suggested as Percy turned his head and barely dodged another car.

The other driver honked angrily and sped past them, muttering indecent things.

They were silently speeding by again when the road in front of them branched towards a mud road.

Percy had no intentions of turning at that point but something took over the car. He wasn't in control anymore.

"Uh, fishface, what are you doing?", Jason asked uncertainly.

"Percy, what's going on?", Nico asked sounding slightly panicky.

The car turned itself into the mud road and into a huge field. A mansion stood at the centre of the field.

"Guess we'll see", Percy replied, more calmly than he felt.

He pulled Riptide out and held it firmly in his left hand and clenched his jaw.

He could feel the tension in the car, as they pulled up in front of the mansion.

A woman stood on the front door. First thing Percy noticed was that she was gorgeous. She stood in a dark blue sundress with her golden blonde hair falling around her shoulders in the slight tussled way models kept their hair. Her dark eyes sparkled as she gave them a dazzling smile.

The car doors flew open and Percy, Nico and Jason were thrown out.

Literally, because the seats sprang up and pushed them out.

"Oww, I think I broke my tailbone", Nico muttered.

"No you didn't, you've got a lot of cushioning on that butt", Jason replied wincing as he patted his ass.

Percy just stared at them. Were they flirting?

The woman looked unfazed. "Get up, heroes", she said, grinning flirtatiously.

Percy got to his feet as his backside throbbed.

"He's been waiting for you for a really long while", she said, winking at Jason. Nico still seemed to be patting his butt.

They went in through the hall, to the living room. The rooms were furnished very well, in a futuristic style.

They followed the woman to an outdoor swimming pool.

A guy was swimming towards one of the ladders at the corner of the pool.

He walked out of the pool and picked up a towel and started drying himself.

He looked like a model, ever ready for a photoshoot.

"So you're finally here", he said in English but it was heavy with accent.

"Who are you?", Nico asked him, his face a mask.

Percy wondered if Nico was checking this guy out.

Then he mentally slapped himself for being such a jackass. Nico probably had a theory about who this guy was and was just mentally checking for threats.

The guy shot Jason a dirty look and studied Percy and Nico. "I'm Jason of course"

The three demigods stood open mouthed, confused.

"Uh, dude", Jason started, "I'm Jason"

The guy snarled, "I'm the original Jason, you halfwit"

The only similarity between the original Jason and their Jason was that they were both well built. Original Jason's eyes were green and he had dark hair. His features were sharper and he was overall prettier. Percy wondered if the latter part was due to makeup.

"You came back from the dead too?", Percy asked, his heart sinking. How many people and monsters had escaped before they closed the Doors of Death?

"Of course I did", Jason the Original replied, "How could I resist? Ever since my pathetic demise I have been waiting for a chance to prove myself again"

"Pathetic demise?", Percy asked, before the could stop himself.

"Yeah, he died disgraced", Nico replied quietly.

"Son of Hades, eh?", Original Jason asked, twitching his nose checking Nico out, "I know the aura. I've been in the underworld long enough"

"Uh, so well, nice to meet you", Jason said flatly, "But we'll be leaving now"

The original Jason laughed harshly, "Leaving? Oh, honey, no one is leaving. Especially not you."

Percy wondered what the original Jason could have against their Jason. Was he going to kill them because their Jason stole his name?

"What happened to you isn't his fault", Nico interrupted stubbornly. "It's your fault you left Medea and lost favour with Hera. You can't kill us for that"

"Well", Original Jason said thoughtfully, "I have all the reasons to kill you and especially him."

Him being Jason, who he was baring his teeth at.

"Dude", Percy gritted his teeth, "There are far bigger problems right now."

Jason stepped up as Original Jason found a shirt and put it on, "Your time is over. Stop interfering in our work. Do whatever you've been doing ever since you came back. Just don't meddle."

He would've sounded dangerous but original Jason just laughed dryly. "Hera favours you now, you've got a beautiful girlfriend (At this the blonde woman raised her eye brows at Original Jason but he didn't even look at her), you've built a better ship than my Argo, the Greeks even found you with one shoe!"

"What are you implying?", Percy asked confused.

"Stop copying me! You've taken everything I had", Original Jason shouted. "YOU EVEN STOLE MY NAME"

Jason looked uncomfortable.

"Well, you weren't that smart, were you?", Nico asked and Percy thought Original Jason would strangle the little kid with his bare hands, but Nico continued. "You had it and you lost it. You're done for. It's his chance now."

Original Jason seemed not to waver. "We'll, no, it isn't. I plan to take it back"

"What do you want?", Percy asked stupidly. He felt rather out of his depth here. He didn't understand much of what was going on. But he was becoming to understand what the original Jason wanted. He hoped it wasn't what he thought, because what he thought was crazy, but then again, Original Jason did seem crazy.

He smiled at him and jutted his hip back and stood in ridiculous pose, as if for a photoshoot for swimwear. He ran his fingers through his hair.

"Well, I plan to kill Jason, take you both as hostage, take over your ship and take his girlfriend for my own. Then I will take over your quest and save the world and win my honour back."

"Oh, that plan seems fool proof", Nico replied sarcastically, "How do you plan to save the world?"

"By serving Gaia of course. She's going to make the world a better place"

"Yeah, that sounds very honourable", Nico snapped, "Come on, we're leaving"

Percy really hoped Nico wasn't pushing it too far. That kid would get himself killed with his sharp tongue.

Jason shot a last look at the original Jason and turned to walk away. But Percy wasn't that comfortable turning his back on an enemy. Greeks didn't trust that easily.

That might have been a good thing because just then Original Jason clicked his fingers and four guards in grey suits stepped up. There was something horribly familiar about them but Percy couldn't remember why.

One of the guards picked up Nico like he was a little kitten and held him up.

Nico struggled to reach for his sword but the guard just tossed the sword aside.

Percy had already turned his ballpoint pen into Riptide. "Put him down", he snarled.

"Or what?", Original Jason asked laughing.

Jason drew his gladiator, "You made a lethal mistake, Jason", he spat the last word. "What you don't realize is that I have something you never had"

Original Jason studied him and then smiled, bit this time, the smile was pasty, "And what is that?"

"My father is Zeus", Jason said dangerously, the sky rumbled and the fighting broke out.

_**Reviews are always appreciated! Always. Thank you.**_


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